BackgroundHypomethylating agents (HMAs), such as decitabine (DAC), are currently used as first-line therapy for patients with high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) not eligible for standard chemotherapies. Exacerbation of thrombocytopenia is one of the prevalent complications after HMA treatment. Eltrombopag (EP), an oral thrombopoietin receptor agonist, can efficiently stimulate megakaryopoiesis and elevate platelet counts in MDS/AML patients. However, the significance of combining EP with HMAs in patients with high-risk MDS/AML has not been determined.PurposeTo explore the impacts and mechanisms of EP and/or DAC on leukemia cell growth and to explore whether EP exhibits antileukemic effects in the context of DAC treatment in human myeloid leukemia cell lines.MethodsIn our study, we assessed the anti-leukemic effect of EP in the context of DAC treatment by measuring cell proliferation, apoptosis, cell-cycle distribution, and intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels.ResultsOur results showed that the combination of EP and DAC had a more obvious antiproliferative effect than that of DAC as a single agent. EP mainly induced S or G0/G1 phase cell cycle arrest, and DAC arrested the cell cycle in the S or G2/M phase. The combination of EP and DAC had a synergistic effect on cell cycle arrest. Furthermore, single-agent treatment with EP or DAC induced a change in intracellular ROS levels, and the combination of EP and DAC had a synergistic effect on ROS levels, exacerbating leukemia cell death.ConclusionOur study provides in vitro evidence of the synergistic antileukemic effect and potential mechanisms of the combination of DAC and EP on myeloid leukemia cells.
These authors contributed equally to this workPurpose: To validate the clinical efficacy of the recently developed EUTOS long-term survival (ELTS) score in a real-world setting. Patients and Methods: A total of 479 chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients treated with frontline imatinib between January 2010 and December 2017 were enrolled in this retrospective study. The ELTS score was evaluated on the end-points including complete cytogenetic response (CCyR), progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS) and CML-related death, and the efficiency of the ELTS score was further compared with the historical Sokal, Hasford, EUTOS scores. Results: With a median follow-up of 69 months (range, 9-112 months), 462 evaluable patients were stratified into the ELTS low-risk (n = 230), ELTS intermediate-risk (n = 168) and ELTS high-risk (n = 64) groups. For the regular assessment indicators like CCyR, PFS and OS, the ELTS scoring system could effectively identify the corresponding risk groups, similarly with the results provided by previous scoring systems. With respect to the CML-related death, the ELTS score could accurately identify a highrisk group with a significantly higher risk of dying of CML, and the 5-year cumulative incidence occurred in the ELTS high-, intermediate-, and low-risk groups was 11% (95% CI: 3-19%), 5% (95% CI: 1-9%) and 2% (95% CI: 0-4%), respectively. Most notably, the ELTS score outperformed the Sokal, Hasford and EUTOS scores without statistical difference among different risk groups. Conclusion: The ELTS score could effectively predict the prognosis of imatinib-treated CML patients in real-life settings.
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