Characteristic and Complication Patterns of Polycythaemia Vera: A Single Centre Experience

Background and objectives: In addition to being at risk for thrombosis and disease progression, patients with polycythemia vera frequently have a wide variety of clinical, demographic and laboratory presentations which vary according to the geographical area and ethnic groups. This study aimed at defining these variations in our locality and comparing it to other international studies. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out from January 2022 to January 2023 at Hiwa Cancer Hospital, Sulaymaniyah City, with a total of 200 adult cases of already diagnosed and registered cases of polycythemia vera according to the 2016 WHO criteria. The overview of demographic profiles: the age distribution, gender prevalence, laboratory characteristics, and complications patterns of these cases were studied. Results: From the total of 200 cases, 118 (59%) were males and 82 (41%) of them were females, the mean age (60.4 ± 12.4) year, with a range of (25–88), 47 (23.5%) patients were having complications, either thrombosis 19 (40.4%), acute myeloid leukemia progression, 8 (4%), or myelofibrosis 20 (42.6%), and 153 (76.5%) of patients did not show any complication, 104 (52%) had splenomegaly. There were significant associations between development of complications and certain parameters like: age, disease duration, leukocyte count, platelets, and hemoglobin levels, in a concordance way i.e., the higher the value of these parameters, the higher the risk of developing complications. Conclusions: distinctive patterns of these parameters were identified in our locality and correlated to other geographical areas. Our findings showed the significance of understanding different patterns of patient characteristics andcomplications of polycythemia vera in different regions.