Study reveals how chronic blood cancer transitions to aggressive disease

A type of chronic leukemia can simmer for many years. Some patients may need treatment to manage this type of blood cancer — called myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) — while others may go through long periods of watchful waiting. But for a small percentage of patients, the slower paced disease can transform into an aggressive cancer, called secondary acute myeloid leukemia, that has few effective treatment options. Little has been known about how this transformation takes place.