Myelodysplastic syndrome is a clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorder characterized by cytopenias, dysplasia of blood cells, and risk of progression to acute leukemia. It occurs most commonly in elderly patients and is caused by ineffective hematopoiesis where blood cells produced in the bone marrow are abnormal and destroyed early. The disease involves dysplasia of the myeloid, erythroid, and megakaryocytic cell lines and is classified based on the percentage of blasts and cytopenias seen in the bone marrow and peripheral blood.