Hematology Reviews

Deals with myelodysplastic syndromes, examining the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of refractory anaemias and hypoblastic anaemias. A new treatment for MDS syndrome is described. The book also discusses the genetic features of Northern Siberian peoples on the banks of the River Ob.

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This series focuses on key developments in Soviet fundamental and applied haematological research. It intends to make medical advances available to those who do not read Russian. This book, the fourth part of the fourth volume in the series, comprises five reviews. The first describes a modern classification of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and discusses clinico-haematologic characteristics of these diseases. The authors suggest a working hypothesis which characterizes MDS pathogenesis mechanisms and outlines a treatment programme for MDS. The second review discusses acquired refractory hypersideroblastic anaemias which are pre-leukaemic states associated with myelosydplastic syndrome. The authors report on 43 patients with acquired refractory hypersideroblastic anaemia (ARHA) and establish three periods in the ARHA process - the incipient period, the period of extended clinical picture and the period of acute leukaemia development. Review number three discusses the main results of a study of the North Khanty population and gives a brief description of their genetico-demographic structure.
The fourth review details a cytogenetic study of the Khanty population which reveals a very frequent occurrence of the subtotal deletion of the heterochromatin of the Y-chromosome - del(Y)(q12) and analyzes the phenotypic effect of this rare chromosome variant. Numerically small ethnic groups living in extreme climatic and geographic conditions are most interesting from the population-genetic viewpoint of the investigation of chromosome polymorphism. The last review of this volume details the functional effect of nucleolus organizer regions (NOR) of chromosomes on the variability of certain human quantitative morphophysiological traits. Results indicate that the functional activity of ribosomal genes in individuals of different sexes may exert a modifying effect on the level of a great number of genes. This book should be of interest to anthropologists, geneticists, haematologists, morphologists, physiologists and clinicians.