In conclusion, disease-related anemia is a powerful negative prognostic factor both at a time of diagnosis and even more so as it develops during the course of the disease. Red blood cell transfusion dependency may further worsen a patient’s outcome if it is a disease-related development. I’ve highlight disease-related development because some of the medications that we use may worsen the anemia and that is different than disease-related development of anemia. Due to its significant clinical relevance, therapy of anemia is identified as a measure item in current algorithms for therapy of myelofibrosis along with bone marrow transplant and JAK inhibitors.
