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MYELODYSPLASTIC NEOPLASM

Combining lenalidomide with erythropoiesis stimulating agents: a party of one

Leukemia volume 38, pages 473–474 (2024)Cite this article

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“Solitude, sometimes is best society” - John Milton, Paradise Lost.

The myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) represent an inherently complex collection of disorders arising from genetic and epigenetic alterations that accumulate over years or even decades. MDS subtypes have biologically and clinically distinct pathologies, contributing to the considerable variability observed in both clinical progression and responsiveness to therapy. For patients with anemia and lower-risk MDS (LR-MDS), often defined by the International Prognostic Scoring System-Revised or -Molecular, any treatment is ultimately palliative, as no prospective trial has ever demonstrated a survival advantage for an intervention. Therapy should only be initiated when a patient’s decrement in quality of life or outsized blood product transfusion needs demand it. This includes supportive agents that stimulate erythropoiesis or certain disease-modifying drugs in an attempt to ameliorate the lifetime of transfusions that chain patients to a care facility. To our collective lament, progress in novel therapeutic approaches to treat LR-MDS has been a slow crawl. Consequently, as with other hematologic malignancies, one approach has been to maximize the potential of available therapies by exploring drug combinations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Hematology, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA

    Namrata S. Chandhok & Mikkael A. Sekeres

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  1. Namrata S. Chandhok
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  2. Mikkael A. Sekeres
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NSC reviewed the data and drafted the manuscript. MAS reviewed the data and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mikkael A. Sekeres.

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Chandhok, N.S., Sekeres, M.A. Combining lenalidomide with erythropoiesis stimulating agents: a party of one. Leukemia 38, 473–474 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41375-024-02176-z

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