Basically your doctor disagrees with the majority of hematologists and MPN specialists about ET's reclassification as a cancer around 2006. As long as the doc is following accepted treatment protocols, your care plan may still be the same as everyone else's--test for driver mutations, monitor blood every few months, take baby aspirin, start HU when you are in the high risk zone, and visit at least once a year.

If it were me, I would ask why your doc doesn't agree with the cancer designation. The answer might tell me something about his attitudes, whether he keeps up with new info, and what kind if care I can expect.

anavleek, as if it weren't confusing enough . . . some doctors say ET is a blood cancer. Others say it is a blood disorder.

ET is triggered (90% of the time) when, for unknown reasons, one of the three proteins that govern platelet production experiences a mutation. (Ten percent of the time, there is no protein mutation. This is referred to as triple negative ET.)

With that mutation, the protein "drives" the blood marrow to produce excessive and misshapen (abnormal) platelets.

Producing abnormal cells is a definition of cancer.

Like many MPN topics, this issue is strongly debated. I personally feel ET is cancer, others may see it in a different way.

If we agree to call ET cancer, note that it is not an acute cancer, such as the cancers that produce tumors. Instead, it is a chronic cancer. It can't be cured but it can be managed.

Speaking personally, accepting that I have a chronic cancer motivates me to take my chemo capsules and work out every day. Maybe this will not extend my life. But it will make every day I have better.

Does any of that make sense?