3.1 Baseline characteristics of 20 PNH patients
Twenty patients with refractory/recurrent or glucocorticoid dependent classic PNH were enrolled in our study. The results of bone marrow cytology in 20 patients with PNH showed that 9 patients (9/20, 45.00%) had increased bone marrow viability, 11 patients (11/20, 55.00%) had obvious activity, and no decreased proliferation was found. There were 12 males and 8 females with ages ranging from 19-68 years, and the median age was 41 years. The course of disease from diagnosis to chemotherapy ranged from 0.08 to 16 years. All patients had been treated with corticosteroids before, but the clinical efficacy of corticosteroids was not as expected. Some patients had complications such as diabetes, hypertension, and gastric mucosal bleeding, which may be related to long-term corticosteroid use and high-dose corticosteroids. Some of the patients were also treated with androgens, erythropoietin and cyclosporine before chemotherapy. None of the patients had thrombotic complications or had received prophylactic anticoagulant therapy. The dose and cycle number of chemotherapy drugs were adjusted according to the severity of myelosuppression or hemolysis. The baseline characteristics of the patients are summarized in Table 1.
The clinical symptoms of the 20 PNH patients were summarized as follows: 17 (85.00%) cases of dizziness and fatigue, 11 (55.00%) cases of palpitation and shortness of breath, 3 (15.00%) cases of tinnitus, 18 (90.00%) cases of pale skin mucosa, 15 (75.00%) cases of yellow skin mucosa , and 16 (80.00%) cases of darkened urine (including 7 cases of soy sauce colored urine, 6 cases of strong tea colored urine, and 3 cases of dark yellow urine).