THE CONTRIBUTION OF AUER RODS TO THE CLASSIFICATION AND PROGNOSIS OF MYELODYSPLASTIC SYNDROMES

Auer rods were first recognized at the beginning of this century. Thei r presence soon became considered to be an unequivocal manifestation o f a leukemic process. Possibly influenced by this long-held assumption , in 1982 the French-American-British co-operative group (FAB) incorpo rated the presence of Auer rods into a classification system of the my elodysplastic syndromes that remains in widespread clinical usage toda y. Although unsubstantiated at the time, the presence of Auer rods was suggested to indicate a rapidly progressive disorder and a poor progn osis. In the absence of studies confirming the utility of Auer rods as a diagnostic criterion, the FAB classification system of myelodysplas tic syndromes has been widely used to allocate therapy. In this review we examine the early descriptions of Auer rods and critically evaluat e the studies examining the value their presence has in the classifica tion and prognosis of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes.