Patients with this disease are born with it and have a fragility of the genes (chromosomes) in all the cells of the body. The fragility of the chromosomes puts patients with FA at high risk for certain cancers. Patients with FA are especially at risk of having diseases of the blood and marrow systems. These include (1) aplastic anemia, a disease where there is a failure of the bone marrow to make blood cells and (2) myelodysplastic syndrome which is represented by a clone of cells of the marrow that becomes "malignant" and stops making adequate numbers of blood cells (it is also called preleukemia.) The progression of the myelodysplastic syndrome will lead to (3) acute leukemia.