What is Chronic Erythromyelosis?
Chronic erythromyelosis is a rare disease, present in the bone marrow mainly by red blood cells. It differs from acute erythromyelosis in the complete absence of erythroblasts and myeloblasts in the blood and bone marrow.
Chronic erythromyelosis is extremely rare, it refers to leukemia originating from a common progenitor cell of myelopoiesis, is represented in the bone marrow mainly by erythrokaryocytes.
Symptoms of Chronic Erythromyelosis
Clinically, the disease manifests itself as persistent, practically non-treatable macrocytic anemia and hematopoietic hyperplasia. Both of these changes indicate ineffective erythropoiesis. However, in contrast to acute processes, this condition is caused not by intracostal hemolysis, but by a tumor of the red sprout of hematopoiesis, while the morphology of erythrokaryocytes may be normal, which complicates the diagnosis of the tumor process. This difficulty is characteristic of many forms of chronic myelogenous leukemia.
Diagnosis of Chronic Erythromyelosis
Clinical examination may also reveal an enlarged spleen. When puncture in the cells of the spleen can be detected myeloid metaplasia with a large number of red blood cells. Often, such a study provides confidence in the nature of the disease, since specific cytomarkers for chronic erythromyelosis have not yet been found.
Unlike acute, chronic erythromyelosis can occur 3-5 years or more.
In the terminal stage, the process is accompanied by strong blast growth in the bone marrow, sarcoma growth in the lymph nodes, liver, spleen and other organs.
Treatment of Chronic Erythromyelosis
Specific therapy for chronic erythromyelosis has not yet been developed. Removal and irradiation of the spleen has almost no effect. Most often, repeated red blood cell transfusions are used and the antiserum to red blood cells is injected.