Efficacy and safety of human leucocyte interferon‐α treatment in patients younger than 60 years of age with polycythaemia vera

Stasi, Roberto; Brunetti, Maurizio; Bussa, S.; Venditti, Adriano; Poeta, Giovanni Del; Conforti, Marina; Scimò, Maria Teresa; Cudillo, Laura; Adorno, Gaspare; Cecconi, Manrico; Amadori, Sergio; Pagano, Adalberto

doi:10.1046/j.1365-2796.1997.00162.x

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 16 publications

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“…Remission was complete in two patients and partial in the other two [ 137 ]. A few years later, the efficacy of human leucocyte IFN was convincingly demonstrated in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) [ 138 ], as well as in patients with ET and PV [ 139 , 140 , 141 ]. Soon after, IFN-α2 was cloned, enabling the production of large amounts of IFNs for experimental research and clinical trials.…”

Section: History Of Interferon-α In Mpnsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recombinant Interferon-β in the Treatment of Polycythemia Vera and Related Neoplasms: Rationales and Perspectives

Hasselbalch

Skov

Kjær

et al. 2022

Cancers

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About 30 years ago, the first clinical trials of the safety and efficacy of recombinant interferon-α2 (rIFN-α2) were performed. Since then, several single-arm studies have shown rIFN-α2 to be a highly potent anticancer agent against several cancer types. Unfortunately, however, a high toxicity profile in early studies with rIFN-α2 -among other reasons likely due to the high dosages being used-disqualified rIFN-α2, which was accordingly replaced with competitive drugs that might at first glance look more attractive to clinicians. Later, pegylated IFN-α2a (Pegasys) and pegylated IFN-α2b (PegIntron) were introduced, which have since been reported to be better tolerated due to reduced toxicity. Today, treatment with rIFN-α2 is virtually outdated in non-hematological cancers, where other immunotherapies—e.g., immune-checkpoint inhibitors—are routinely used in several cancer types and are being intensively investigated in others, either as monotherapy or in combination with immunomodulatory agents, although only rarely in combination with rIFN-α2. Within the hematological malignancies, rIFN-α2 has been used off-label for decades in patients with Philadelphia-negative chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs)—i.e., essential thrombocythemia, polycythemia vera, and myelofibrosis—and in recent years rIFN-α2 has been revived with the marketing of ropeginterferon-α2b (Besremi) for the treatment of polycythemia vera patients. Additionally, rIFN-α2 has been revived for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia in combination with tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Another rIFN formulation-recombinant interferon-β (rIFN-β)—has been used for decades in the treatment of multiple sclerosis but has never been studied as a potential agent to be used in patients with MPNs, although several studies and reviews have repeatedly described rIFN-β as an effective anticancer agent as well. In this paper, we describe the rationales and perspectives for launching studies on the safety and efficacy of rIFN-β in patients with MPNs.

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