The old and new thrombotic risk factors in essential thrombocythemia patients

Abstract

Essential Thrombocythemia (ET) is one of the classical Philadelphia negative myeloproliferative neoplasms. Despite the chronic course of the disease, the ET patients had an inferior survival compared to the general population, because of higher mortality, mainly due to thrombotic complications. Besides well known old risk factors, such as old age (>60 year) and previous history of thrombosis, still some new ones appeared. In 2005 the JAK2V617F point mutation was found in 50-60% of ET patients. An increased risk of thrombosis in patients with this mutation has been reported. In this study there is a summary of old and new risk factors which may contribute to thrombotic complications in ET patients.