Diagnosis and evaluation of prognosis of myelofibrosis: A British Society for Haematology Guideline

Abstract

This document represents an update of the British Society for Haematology (BSH) guideline on myelofibrosis (MF) first published in 2012 and updated in 2015. 1 This guideline aims to provide healthcare professionals with clear guidance on the diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of primary myelofibrosis (PMF), as well as post-polycythaemia vera myelofibrosis (post-PV MF) and post-essential thrombocythaemia myelofibrosis (post-ET MF). A section on prefibrotic MF is also included. A separate BSH Guideline covers the management of MF and is published alongside this guideline. M ETHODOLOGYThese guidelines were compiled according to the BSH process https:// b-s-h. org. uk/ media/ 16732/ bsh-guida nce-devel opmen tproce ss-dec-5-18. pdf. The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) nomenclature was used to evaluate levels of evidence and to assess the strength of recommendations. The GRADE criteria can be found at http:// www. grade worki nggro up. org. Recommendations are based on a review of the relevant MF-related literature using Medline, PubMed/Medline and Cochrane searches beginning from 2012 up to mid-2022. Filters were applied to include only publications written in English, studies carried out in humans, clinical conferences, congresses, clinical trials, clinical studies, meta-analyses, multicentre studies and randomised controlled trials. Exclusion criteria included papers published in non-English journals and those publications without an abstract.

Evidence creation for myelofibrosis: Challenges and opportunities

“…In their paper, the authors provide an update of the previous published guidelines of the British Society for Haematology (BSH) on the management of myelofibrosis 1 . Advances in understanding of molecular biology have paved the way for drug development for myelofibrosis (MF).…”