Patients with high-risk MDS had lower serum levels of EGF (Mann–Whitney U test, p = 0.011), CD40L (p = 0.006), CCL5 (p = 0.001), CCL11 (p = 0.012), and CXCL5 (p = 0.004) compared to the low-risk patients (Figure 1). Here, CXCL5 is linked to myelodysplastic syndrome.