Myelodysplastic Syndromes
New Cases (Incidence)
- The overall incidence rate of MDS is 4.4 cases per 100,000 persons.
- MDS most commonly strikes males aged 80 years and older.
- From 2004 to 2008, there were approximately 62,886 cases of MDS throughout the United States, averaging an estimated 12,577 cases per year.
Types of MDS
- The most common specific MDS subtypes are:
- refractory anemia (RA), which makes up 12.4 percent of all MDS cases
- refractory anemia with excess blasts (RAEB), which makes up 14.1 percent
- MDS not otherwise specified (MDS NOS) makes up 54.7 percent of all MDS cases.
- Therapy-related MDS makes up less than 2 percent of all reported cases.
Incidence by Gender
For the five-year period from 2004 to 2008:
- approximately 35,058 cases were made up of males, averaging 7,012 per year
- approximately 27,828 cases were made up of females, averaging 5,566 per year
This results in an incidence rate of 6.1 cases per 100,000 for males, and a much lower 3.4 cases per 100,000 for females.
Incidence by Race and Ethnicity
- White males have the highest incidence rates (6.2 cases per 100,000).
- American Indian and Alaskan Native males (2.5 per 100,000 population) and Asian and Pacific Islander females (2.4 cases per 100,000 population) have the lowest incidence rates.
Survival
The SEER program only recently began maintaining statistics for MDS. Prevalence and mortality statistics were not reported by SEER for MDS in 2011 at the time of this publication.
Deaths
Data for the number and rates of deaths from MDS are not yet available.
MDS facts and statistics from Facts 2012.
