Modern Myelofibrosis Care: What Is the Overall Approach to Diagnosis, Treatment?

Ruchi Desai, MD, is an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in Richmond. She is also a clinical researcher at the VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, and her practice and investigative experience span myelofibrosis and other myeloproliferative neoplasms.

Blood Cancers Today spoke with Dr. Desai to hear expert perspective on how myelofibrosis is managed today. In this first interview segment, she describes the challenge of myelofibrosis diagnosis, a clinical evaluation process that involves symptom and biomarker analysis, bone marrow biopsy, and histopathologic examination.

Dr. Desai was also asked how she optimizes treatment for each patient with myelofibrosis. She explained that risk scoring systems can help guide clinicians’ decision-making but her practice experience underscores, for her, that management is, ultimately, very individualized in nature. She highlights Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor selection as an especially nuanced area requiring careful consideration.