Excess Mortality in Polycythemia Vera and Essential Thrombocythemia

Abstract Background and objective. An important proportion of patients with polycythemia vera (PV) and essential thrombocythemia (ET) are diagnosed in the seventh and eighth decades of life. Because of the chronic course of PV and ET and the advanced age of patients, many will actually die from age-related ailments instead of the myeloproliferative neoplasm, so the disease's impact on life-expectancy remains largely unknown. This registry‐based study was aimed at investigating the excess mortality attributable to PV and ET in a large series of patients diagnosed and managed according to modern criteria. Methods. We queried the databases of the Spanish Group for Chronic Myeloproliferative Ne…