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Myelodysplasia and Myeloproliferative Disorder Care

When you’re a patient at Swedish, we don’t just treat your illness – we treat you. We use the most advanced treatments to create a highly personalized care plan. We also support you and your loved ones with a full range of services throughout your entire journey. The result is effective, whole-person care for your body, mind and spirit.

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Why Choose Us for Myelodysplasia and Myeloproliferative Disorder Care?

At Swedish, we see the life in you. Together, let’s finish cancer – so you don’t have to miss any of life’s special moments.

No two patients, or their treatment plans, are alike. Through the Swedish Cancer Institute's, the specialists in our Hematologic Malignancies program utilize the newest, most advanced science, called gene sequencing. Our expert clinicians work with you to design a treatment plan that fits your personal needs. It’s an approach that combines leading-edge treatment with the compassionate care Swedish is known for. Why? Because we know this results in the best outcomes.

As a patient, you’ll be supported throughout your entire care journey by our expert multidisciplinary care team of board-certified hematologists and radiation oncologists. It’s a team-based approach to myelodysplasia and myeloproliferative disorders. Your care team may also include nurse navigators, psychosocial specialists, nutritionists and other specialists. We also provide you and your family with a full range of support services well beyond conventional treatment, from genetic counseling and education to nutrition and pain management.

Learn more about the experts who make up our multidisciplinary cancer care teams.

Blood disease doesn’t discriminate, but access to great hematology care hasn’t always been the same for everyone. At Swedish, we are deeply committed to making sure every patient we treat has access to the best care. We offer various location-specific services to help our patients receive equitable care, such as translation for non-English-speaking patients, telehealth and transportation assistance. We value, respect and support the racial, ethnic, religious, spiritual, gender, and sexual identities of each member of our diverse communities, and we welcome all patients, regardless of their ability to pay. We aim to make sure every patient is treated equally and with dignity – whoever you are, and wherever you’re at.

At any given time, the Swedish Cancer Institute offers patients more than 140 clinical-research studies involving most types of cancers. Clinical trials give patients access to promising new medications and procedures before they are widely available. Such trials are also the primary way that progress is made in finding better approaches to treatment and cure. Additionally, our physician specialists collaborate with other regional and national research groups, including Southwest Oncology Group, National Cancer Institute, Puget Sound Oncology Consortium and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

What Are Myelodysplasia and Myeloproliferative Disorders?

Myelodysplasia and myeloproliferative disorders are diseases of the bone marrow and blood. In myelodysplastic diseases, there are fewer healthy white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets in the blood. In myeloproliferative diseases, too many stem cells develop, increasing the number of blood cells. The expert oncology teams at Swedish use the most effective therapies to treat patients with every type of myelodysplasia and myeloproliferative disorder and their related conditions, including:

Essential thrombocytosis
Myelodysplasia
Polycythemia vera
Myelofibrosis

Testing and Diagnostics

Personalized Treatment for Myelodysplasia and Myeloproliferative Disorders

We take a team approach, because we know this offers the best success in managing and curing blood and bone marrow disorders. Your multidisciplinary team will work with you to design an individualized care plan, from diagnosis to post-treatment support. We offer many different therapies across our Swedish locations. Depending on your condition, your personal care plan may include one or more of the following:

Systemic Therapies Radiation Therapies Gene Sequencing

Systemic Therapies

Systemic therapies travel through the bloodstream and affect cells in other body parts. They are used for patients whose cancer has spread to other areas of the body or if there’s a high risk of spread. Sophisticated genetic analysis allows us to target therapies to specific DNA mutations that cause cancer cells to develop and grow. Systemic therapies include:

Chemotherapy is the systemic use of cytotoxic chemicals to kill cancer cells. Today there are many medications (e.g., biological medications, immune treatments, targeted therapies) that do not fit the classic definition of chemotherapy yet are often included in this category.

Clinical trials represent research protocols that include the use of new drugs or drug combinations in a specific clinical situation.

Molecularly targeted therapy is the use of drugs that are molecularly targeted at a genetic mutation that has allowed the cancer to grow. This therapy enables personalized treatments for patients who carry certain genetic mutations or abnormalities.

Radiation Therapies

Radiation therapy uses high-energy radiation from a source like X-rays or photons to kill cancer cells or shrink tumors. It may be part of a treatment plan that also includes systemic therapies and/or surgery. Radiation is sometimes used to help ease a patient’s pain or discomfort. Radiation therapies include:

Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) are advanced types of radiation therapies. IMRT uses advanced technology to manipulate the radiation beams to conform to the shape of a tumor. VMAT is a subtype of IMRT in which the machine actively delivers radiation beams while moving in an arc around the patient.

This method of radiation delivery offers next-generation capabilities. The arc-based therapy provided via VMAT delivers high doses of radiation to more focused areas, reducing side effects and the overall treatment time for the patient. This treatment is particularly effective at treating several types of cancer while at the same time reducing toxicity and harm to vital organs.

This procedure is one of several new ways to deliver radiation therapy. It requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Stereotactic radiation (SABR/SBRT) is a group of treatments that includes stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) and stereotactic ablative radiation (SABR) – both of which are adaptations of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) – for the treatment of targets in the body, but outside the brain. Similar to SRS, these techniques deliver very high doses of radiation using sophisticated motion management and patient immobilization techniques.

The number of radiation treatments is minimal and may range from one to five treatments delivered over one to two weeks.

Surface-guided radiation therapy (SGRT/SIGRT) is an approach to radiation targeting that offers real-time beam guidance from face and body surface-recognition systems.

This treatment is particularly effective at treating several types of cancer while at the same time reducing toxicity and harm to vital organs, thus minimizing side effects.

This advanced procedure requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3DCRT) is a radiation planning and treatment technique in which three-dimensional (3D) imaging enables improved targeting for radiation treatment. 3D planning with CT imaging makes radiation treatment much more conformal, or tailored to the target.

Gene Sequencing

Gene sequencing is used for many types of cancer, but it is particularly important with hematologic malignancies because there are usually many different mutations that cause leukemia. Knowing which mutation is causing your cancer is a powerful tool that helps your doctor prescribe the best treatment right from the start.

Using high-tech equipment, the chromosomes and DNA in the cancer cells are studied and the specific type of abnormality that is causing the cancer is identified. Research has shown that some abnormalities respond better to certain kinds of treatment, so gene sequencing allows your doctor to create the ultimate customized treatment plan.

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Accreditations

We are proud to see our dedication to our patients recognized by the most well-respected programs and institutions in the United States. Several of our Swedish locations have achieved the following accreditations: