When and How to Treat Essential Thrombocythemia

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Abstract
Essential thrombocythemia is one of the chronic myeloproliferative disorders, a heterogeneous group of diseases involving clonal hematopoietic stem cells that also includes polycythemia vera, idiopathic myelofibrosis, and chronic myelogenous leukemia.1 Among these disorders, essential thrombocythemia has the most favorable outcome: patients with this disease have a life span that nearly rivals that of a healthy population matched by age and sex.2 The principal causes of death in patients with essential thrombocythemia are thrombosis, hemorrhage, and progression to myelofibrosis or acute myelogenous leukemia. The myelosuppressive therapy that prevents vascular events in essential thrombocythemia may itself increase the risk of transformation to . . .