Myeloproliferative Neoplasms

Patients with myelofibrosis experienced relief from pain, fatigue, and other symptoms associated with enlarged spleens after treatment with a JAK1 and JAK2 inhibitor, according to study results from Houston’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Research presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in New Orleans introduced potential new treatment options and improved diagnostic methods for patients suffering from acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), and myelofibrosis that are based on a better understanding of the underlying genetic causes of these conditions.

NEW ORLEANS-A new treatment for patients who are severely debilitated by myelofibrosis offers hope of a return to normal daily life. Preliminary studies with an oral drug INCB018424 that targets the Janus-activated kinase (JAK) 2 gene appears to markedly reduce the swelling of the spleen and sometimes the liver, which can, in turn, can change patients’ quality of life.

HOUSTON-The farnesyl transferase inhibitor R115777 (tipifarnib, also known as Zarnestra) produced an overall response rate of 33% in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and decreased splenomegaly in most patients with myelofibrosis, but was not effective in multiple myeloma, reported Deborah Thomas, MD, at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology. Dr. Thomas is assistant professor in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Myeloproliferative disorders originate in the clonal expansion of a transformed pluripotential hematopoietic progenitor cell. This results in a group of syndromes that include polycythemia vera, essential thrombocythemia,

Myeloproliferative disorders originate in the clonal expansion of a transformed pluripotential hematopoietic progenitor cell. This results in a group of syndromes that include polycythemia vera, essential thrombocythemia,

Myeloproliferative disorders originate in the clonal expansion of a transformed pluripotential hematopoietic progenitor cell. This results in a group of syndromes that include polycythemia vera, essential thrombocythemia,

NEW YORK-Bone marrow ron-geur can free some patients with advanced myelofibrosis of the need for blood transfusions, Richard T. Silver, MD, clinical professor of medicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, said at the Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium XVIII. Dr. Silver’s major collaborators in the study were Dr. Malcolm Moore, a noted cell biologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Dr. Edward Athanasian, an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery, New York.