Ruben Mesa, MD, from the Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ, USA provides an overview of his talk on individualizing care for myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) patients held at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the British Society of Haematology (BSH) and International Society of Hematology (ISH) in Glasgow, Scotland. The focus is on understanding the indvidual patient’s disease burden and risk for molecular features and devising a plan for the patient that includes the prevention of vascular events and the avoidance of disease progression. Dr Mesa also discusses some of the key considerations that need to be taken into account for each patient, such as whether they have anemia or co-morbidities.