In patients with essential thrombocythemia (ET) receiving hydroxyurea for cytoreduction who develop anemia — whether hydroxyurea-induced or from a concurrent etiology such as CKD — would you use ESAs?

This is an important question. Patients with ET should not have anemia related to the ET itself. Thus, assessing the etiology of the anemia is very important. If the anemia is from hydroxyurea, the first step is to lower the dose of the hydroxyurea. Controlling platelets should not come at the expen...

My initial response to this question is to ask a question, and since this is a monologue, I will also answer it first. Diagnostic accuracy is the sine qua non of medical practice, and nowhere is this more important than in the myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). The three MPNs, polycythemia vera (P...