Myelodysplastic syndromes constitute a group of clonal hematopoietic diseases shown by studies all around the world. The survival estimation of the patients and the cases presenting leukemic evolution demand investigation in the Brazilian population, as there's no data with regard to this theme. Thus, this study aimed to characterize and estimate the survival and leukemic evolution of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes followed up in a reference service. This is a retrospective cohort study carried out from January 2000 to December 2010. The software Epi Info 2002, version 3.5.2, was used for descriptive analysis, and for the calculations of survival probabilities the Kaplan-Meier method was employed through the software Statistic Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 10.0. The calculations of the association probability between the characteristics analyzed and gender were performed using the chi-square for trend, Fisher, Mann Whitney, and Log Rank tests. The significance level was 0.05. The ethical and methodological aspects of the study were approved by the Research Ethics Committee of HUOL, under the Protocol 432/10. Out of the 29 selected patients, there was a predominance of elderly people, males, with low education. They showed low cumulative probability of survival and leukemic evolution rates around 27%, with no satisfactory outcome from chemotherapy, as well as no indication of bone marrow transplantation as a possible cure. There is a need for researches with larger populations for the characterization all over the national territory.
survival analysis; prognosis; preleukemia; refractory anemia; anemia, refractory, with excess of blasts; epidemiology