ABSTRACT
Anemia is the major clinical problem for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Eighty percent of these patients are anemic at presentation and the majority require red cell transfusion at some stage of the disease. For most patients, supportive care with red cell transfusion is currently the most appropriate management strategy but with an increased understanding of the different mechanisms of anemia in this heterogeneous group of diseases, interventional therapy will increasingly be available for patient subgroups determined by biological criteria.
