Welcome to Connect, @camacho. I’m sure with your wife’s recent diagnosis of MDS (myelodyplastic syndrome) you have a lot of questions running through your head.

MDS is a condition that affects the production of blood cells in the bone marrow. It can progress into a more serious condition where the bone marrow starts producing too many immature white blood cells called blasts. That’s when it’s time for chemotherapy, as in your wife’s case.

She’s been given Vidaza (azacitidine) which is a type of chemotherapy that turns on certain genes that help kill cancer cells. As a result, cancer cells no longer grow out of control. It can take several cycles to get the condition under control.
You’re asking about the average time to show an effect on your wife’s hemoglobin. There’s more to the blood results than just the change in your wife’s red blood count. Her doctor will also want to see a drop in white blood cells as well. All of her counts will fluctuate with the cycles of chemo…they’ll all drop 7-10 days after the end of her cycle and rebuild by the beginning of the next.

Have there been any changes to her blood numbers? What are you hoping to see with her hemoglobin? How’s she feeling with the chemo?

I am on 28 Cycles now. It took about 5 or 6 cycles for my hemoglobin to move up the normal ranges. It has now been staying around 13.5. I responded well to the Vidaza. All the best to you. Good health.