Essential thrombocythemia (ET) is a Philadelphia-negative chronic myeloproliferative neoplasm characterized by acquired somatic mutations: JAK2, CALR or MPL. It is associated with low-grade chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidant deficiency. In ET, chronic inflammation and oxidative stress contribute to the genomic instability, the clonal evolution to myelofibrosis and the leukemic transformation. We evaluated ROS levels and the

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... al antioxidant capacity (TAC) in 62 ET patients and investigated the relationship between ROS, TAC, chronic inflammation, leukocytosis, JAK2V617F mutation, and disease progression to myelofibrosis or leukemic transformation. We observed increased levels of ROS and inflammation markers and a decreased TAC in ET patients vs. controls. The acute myeloid leukaemia transformation associated increased levels of oxidative stress and inflammation markers and increased leukocyte counts, while myelofibrosis progression associated an increase in ROS and serum ferritin.