TOWARDS A POTENTIAL OPERATIONAL CURE IN PATIENTS WITH POLYCYTHAEMIA VERA?

[Manouche]

Conclusion

A sizable proportion of patients with PV achieved operational cure after 5 years’ ropeginterferon alfa-2b treatment. Lower age and lower allele burden at baseline predicted allele burden <10% at 5 years, suggesting that ropeginterferon alfa-2b should be initiated early in PV to achieve the greatest long-term benefit.

library.ehaweb.org/eha/2021...

[MPort]

Well that's hopeful. Thanks for posting. I wonder how it would work in 70 year olds and if it will be available to us.

[EmeraldA]

Thanks as always for posting! I have ET diagnosed just over a year ago. I do wonder if wait and see is the best approach with all the new findings coming out about interferon. I would hate to get 5 to 10 years down the road and find out I could have stopped progression or indeed achieved some sort of pause on this condition. x

[Manouche in reply to EmeraldA]

Don’t wait if you have the opportunity to give it a try. Interferon works well but it may still take years to prove it.

« Moshe Talpaz, MD: One of the problems with interferon is that you need the observer, the investigator, to live a very long life in order to control the studies. Because you may need to do studies that stretch over 20 or 30 years in order to have definitive answers, and we may not be able to get this. I’ll give you an anecdotal case.

Moshe Talpaz, MD: I studied it in 1998; it was a long time ago. A patient who I started with essential thrombocythemia but JAK2 positivity. I started to treat her in the late 1980s. And she developed a complete molecular response after 25 years. She is in remission now, after 30 years on therapy. She still gets it on and off. »

[Bigcheat in reply to Manouche]

Hi Manouche,

I had a conversation with hematologist yesterday, as she called in for latest lab work. I brought up my wish to try Pegasys, and we discussed pros and cons. She said that long term side effects of Pegasys are no less than its predecessors and that there is no studies made which could classify who benefits from Pegasys therapy and who doesn’t. On the positive side she said she thinks interferons are good drugs. However, in order to get it in my country, I need to pay for myself and it is considered experimental treatment (I have ET). I am going to a private doctor next month to discuss the possibility.

Cheers,

Bigcheat

[KevinJH]

I wonder how this would affect/influence treatments going forward then ? More trials or only move from, say, HU treatment to ropeginterferon alfa-2b should HU begin to fail ? Not sure what parameters would involve a decision being made to be prescribed this particular regime but would be nice to know.

[MPNBlog]

Thanks for posting this Manouche. Now we need approvals in as many countries as possible so that people can take Besremi.

[Bluetop]

Thanks for posting -we need Besremi approving for us in UK now