On average people with polycythemia can live for 10 to 25 years with treatment if they are 60 or under.
Without treatment that same person with polycythemia may only live 6 months to a few years depending on how far progressed the polycythemia is.
Polycythemia is a type of blood cancer that is usually caused by a change in the JAK2 gene, which causes the bone marrow cells to produce too many red blood cells.
The affected bone marrow cells can also develop into other cells found in the blood, which means that people with PV may also have abnormally high numbers of both platelets and white bloods cells.
Symptoms of polycythemia include lack of energy (fatigue) or weakness, headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath, visual disturbances, nose bleeds, bleeding gums, heavy menstrual periods, and bruising.
The most common treatment for polychythemia vera is having frequent blood withdrawals, using a needle in a vein (phlebotomy).
It's the same procedure used for donating blood.
This decreases your blood volume and reduces the number of excess blood cells.
Median survival in patients with polycythemia vera (PV), which is 1.5-3 years in the absence of therapy, has been extended to approximately 14 years overall, and to 24 years for patients younger than 60 years of age, because of new therapeutic tools.
Recent studies estimate the average life expectancy after diagnosis with polycythemia vera to be about 20 years.
The average age of death is about 77.
The most common cause of death is complications from blood clots (about 33%).
Advancing cancer is the second most common cause (15%).
Often, the first test used to diagnose PV is a CBC.
The CBC measures many parts of your blood.
This test checks your hemoglobin (HEE-muh-glow-bin) and hematocrit (hee-MAT-oh-crit) levels.
Hemoglobin is an iron-rich protein that helps red blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body.
In rare cases, polycythemia vera may eventually progress into a form of leukemia known as acute myeloid leukemia.