The clinical characteristics, gene mutations and outcomes of myelodysplastic syndromes with diabetes mellitus

Purpose Diabetes mellitus (DM) is the second most common comorbidity in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). The purpose of the study was to investigate the clinical characteristics of MDS patients with DM. Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on the clinical data of 890 MDS patients with or without DM. Clinical data, including genetic changes, overall survival (OS), leukemia-free survival (LFS) and infection, were analyzed. Results Among 890 patients, 184 (20.7%) had DM. TET2 and SF3B1 mutations occurred more frequently in the DM group than those in the non-DM group ( p = 0.0092 and p = 0.0004, respectively). Besides, DM was an independent risk factor for infection (HR 2.135 CI 1.451–3.110, p = 0.000) in MDS. Compared to non-DM patients, MDS patients with DM had poor OS and LFS ( p = 0.0002 and p = 0.0017, respectively), especially in the lower-risk group. While in multivariate analysis, DM did not retain its prognostic significance and the prognostic significance of infection was maintained (HR 2.488 CI 1.749–3.538, p = 0.000). Conclusions MDS patients with DM have an inferior prognosis which may due to higher infection incidence, with TET2 and SF3B1 mutations being more frequent in those cases.