Hello Tessa, my brother was diagnosed with ET (Essential Thrombocythemia) at the end of 2011. He was a 25 year old male as young as you. Actually, 3 years ago at the medical check, he got the blood test PLT 537 million per milliliter while the reference range for ordinary people is 100 ~300 million. He didn't see a doctor at that time as he didn't take it seriously. In Oct, 2011, he went for the medical check as well and found the platelets had increased to 1100 million. After the full check, the doctor confirmed he was a patient with ET even though this disease was rare with young people, and most often happened with the elderly people. My brother went to the best hospital in China but the doctors couldn't cure this disease permanently. Every day, my brother has to be injected with interferon to prevent the platelet amount from increasing quickly but recently, this medicine didn't have power to control the platelet amount increase. So, doctors suggested to use hydroxyurea which couldn't be accepted by him as he was not married yet and he wished to have a family.

In this situation, I'm looking for the therapy or treatment outside China, wondering if there's more advanced technology to cure this disease permanently. I'm contacting Mayo Clinic International patients dept and was requested to send the medical check results first. Everything is under preparation.

I'm coming to the community, hoping to discuss with the mates with the same experiences to see if there's good medicine or therapy for this disease, share the treatment progress or maybe the breakthrough in medical science and hope the disease can be cured in the future.