Long-term outcomes of polycythemia vera patients treated with ropeginterferon Alfa-2b

The international consensus classification of myeloid neoplasms and acute Leukemias: myeloproliferative neoplasms

“…The presence of either one of these two risk factors defines high‐risk for thrombosis and their absence low‐risk. First‐line cytoreductive drug of choice in PV is HU and second‐line considerations include pegylated interferon and busulfan 42,60,86–89 …”

“…First-line cytoreductive drug of choice in PV is HU and second-line considerations include pegylated interferon and busulfan. 42,60,[86][87][88][89] Cytoreductive therapy is generally not indicated for low-risk disease. However, aggressive phlebotomy in low-risk patients with PV might result in severe phlebotomy-induced side effects and might also not be adequate in controlling certain disease-associated symptoms such as severe pruritus.…”

Clinicohematologic and molecular response of essential thrombocythemia patients treated with pegylated interferon-α: a multi-center study of the German Study Group-Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (GSG-MPN)

“…Based on preliminary data showing that treatmentfree remissions may be achieved in a subset of long-term pegIFNtreated patients, they were not immediately switched to an alternative drug as they had been treated for a median of 9.5 years (6-18) [14]. While 7/10 patients re-started pegIFN (or an alternative cytoreductive therapy) after a median treatment-free time of 7 months (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15) due to an increased platelet count, 3/10 patients treated over 15-18 years maintained normal blood cell counts until data cut-off (1.5-4.5 years after discontinuation). Interestingly, 4/7 patients with loss of complete hematologic response were JAK2 V617F positive and all four patients showed an allele burden of >5% at the time of pegIFN discontinuation: 5.6%, 16.7%, 19.9%, and 41.7% (the remaining three patients were CALR mutated; VAF not available).…”

Paving the way to improve therapy for Myeloproliferative Neoplasms

“…More recently, pegylated versions of IFNα have been found to be more persistent in vivo, extending the duration of response and allowing a longer interval between doses. Several studies have now compared long-acting pegylated IFNα with hydroxycarbamide in inducing durable longterm haematological responses [5][6][7] , including the normalisation of red blood cell counts and the prevention of thromboembolic events, with the advantage of also being non-leukemogenic. Importantly, IFNα therapy has also proven effective at targeting the MPN stem cell pool with durable molecular remissions also being observed across multiple studies [5][6][7] .…”