Bone marrow ring sideroblasts in hematological diseases: an analysis of consecutive 1300 samples in a single institution.

The incidence of MDS-RS in Japan has been recognized as about 5% which is lower than that in European countries. Insufficient use of iron staining tests in Japan has been noted as one conceivable factor contributing to this apparently lower prevalence. To investigate this issue, we analyzed the proportion of ring sideroblasts (RS) in 1300 bone marrow samples from patients with hematological diseases at Kitasato University Hospital, including iron staining of all samples.