Introduction: Myelodysplastic syndrome is a pathology characterized by its hematopoietic, pluripotential ineffective process in the bone marrow, i.e. causing dysplasia in at least one of its hematopoietic lines with functional and morphological alterations, which, at some point may evolve into leukemia. Objective: review, analyze and describe the most notable features of myelodysplastic syndromes. Methodology: A total of 20 articles were analyzed in this review, including review and original articles, as well as clinical cases, of which 11 bibliographies were used because the other articles were not relevant to this study. The sources of information were PubMed, SciELO, Google Scholar, Medigraphic and Cochrane; the terms used to search for information in Spanish, Portuguese and English were: myelodysplastic syndrome, hematopoietic, anemia, leukemia. Results: It is estimated to have an incidence of 4-12 conditions out of 100 000 patients per year, and it can reach up to 30 out of 100 000 in individuals older than 70 years of age. The occurrence of this anomaly in pediatric age and in young adults is rare and infrequent, and a certain predominance in the male sex has been reported, with a ratio of 1:5, and no relationship with race has been found. Most patients develop symptomatology related to cytopenias and anemia; isolated neutropenias and thrombocytopenias also occur, although not less frequently. Conclusions: Myelodysplastic syndromes are highly complex disorders of low incidence. They mainly affect the production of hematopoietic stem cells, being disorders of difficult approach, due to the mutation and the affection that these disorders entail, triggering aggressive dysplastic and blood diseases such as anemias and leukemias, which makes therapeutic decisions difficult, so it is extremely important to make a correct diagnosis based on a clinical, morphological and exclusion analysis. In addition, the patients condition and age must be taken into account, so that the treatment is effective and the patients survival is adequate.