[Refractory anemias with partial myeloblastosis. Analysis of a protocol comprising 79 cases. 1. Clinical characteristics and evolution under androgen therapy].

Seventy-nine patients with a refractory anemia and partial myeloblastic medullary infiltration have been studied, according to a prospective common protocol. All the patients have been treated with androgens, at high dosage and for at least 10 months if surviving. This study enables to precise the natural history of the disease and to define some criteria valuable for the prognosis. It demonstrates that the classification of this clinical entity as a smoldering or pre-leukemia is justified: 63% of the patients died from acute myeloblastic leukemia. The disease is very severe: the median of survival from the diagnosis is only 13 months. Androgen therapy appears to have little if any effect on the anemia, granulocytopenia and thrombocytopenia; it does not seem to increase the patients' life expectancy.