A randomized phase 3 trial of interferon-α vs hydroxyurea in polycythemia vera and essential thrombocythemia

[LongETinUS]

Hello

The paper below recently came out in May. I thought member would be interested. Apologies if this is old news.

“A randomized phase 3 trial of interferon-α vs hydroxyurea in polycythemia vera and essential thrombocythemia”

It is freely downloadable from PubMed at

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/350...

The front page lists the key points as

1) Rates of thrombosis and progression were low in patients with ET/PV treated with either HU or IFN in this randomized study.

2) PEG was more effective in normalizing counts and reducing JAK2V617F VAF in PV whereas HU induced more HPRs in ET.

[Lin_Hsu]

I also share an article about 6 years of HU or ropeginterferon alpha-2b treatment.

Aims:To analyze the patient-relevant benefit of ropeginterferon alfa-2b versus hydroxyurea (HU)/best available treatment (BAT) over 6 years.

library.ehaweb.org/eha/2022...

[EPguy in reply to Lin_Hsu]

This one is good results, I've been sharing some info from it. I hope they provide the full text eventually. This plot sums it up well. Ropeg had less progression esp after many years.

RopegEventFree6years

[monarch5000]

Silver MPN Center in New York City findings:

"20 years after diagnosis, 85% of PV patients who had been treated with interferon had not progressed to MF compared to 59% for the HU group and 51% of the phebotomy-only group."

"overall survival for patients on interferon was 95% compared to 63% for HU and 57% for phlebotomy-only."

[EPguy in reply to monarch5000]

That study I think is one reason for the recent revival of INF for MPN. Here is a plot from it that shows it well. The blue line is INF.

LongTermINF

[Bluetop in reply to monarch5000]

Thanks for this. I'm assuming this one relates to peg interferon?

[EPguy in reply to Bluetop]

It was actually for the older non-peg formulation from the description. That seems reasonable since pegintron or pegasys were not available in the early part of these studies. Could be the later portions of the study were with peg.

healthunlocked.com/mpnvoice...

[Bluetop in reply to EPguy]

Oh yes, thanks.

[EPguy]

I've not seen this specific one, thanks. It's consistent on thrombotic events, I recall most studies don't find a big diff between HU and INF. But for allele (AB) it is too short duration, INF needs longer periods (than 24 months) to show its best effects.

But it is consistent at 2 years (Fig 3) showing HU losing its AB effect while INF is just getting started, we see this in almost all such studies.

[Bluetop]

Thanks very much for posting. It is very interesting -the team involved, the fact they are looking at pegasus, not ropeg and the results.