Quantity of clonal cells detected by conventional cytogenetic analysis correlates with bone marrow blasts and survival in myelodysplastic syndromes

We performed quantitative and qualitative analyses of conventional cytogenetic analysis and interphase FISH results in 87 MDS patients. The quantity of clonal cells for each chromosome of CCA did not correlate with the result of iFISH (r, range 0.0761-1.0577). The clonal cell percentage in CCA was higher in patients with >5% bone marrow blasts than those with <5% (44.7% vs. 23.1%, p = 0.017). Multivariate analysis showed that a high quantity of clonal cells in CCA analysis is an independent prognostic factor for overall survival in MDS (p = 0.012).