Jamile M. Shammo, MD:Hydrea is probably the most commonly utilized cytoreductive therapy for patients who have polycythemia vera. But I think most of us realize that a group of patients do not get benefits from this medication either at the beginning, which fortunately is a very small proportion of patients, or later on as they continue living with PV and receiving Hydrea. So, I think it’s important for us as physicians to monitor those patients. And the fact is that there are certain criteria for Hydrea resistance and intolerance. These were put together by an expert panel. Physicians, who have taken care of large number of people who have MPNs, do realize that there’s a need for optimization of those parameters and perhaps more of a concrete definition as to what is resistance and intolerance.
But I think that most of us would agree that intolerance to Hydrea is something that we’ve all seen and it’s relatively easier to identify if you have someone who develops metalogical toxicity with the low neutrophil count at the initiation of therapy, or anemia, or obviously mucocutaneous manifestations, mouth ulcers, or skin ulcersalthough skin ulcers happen later on in the course. I haven’t really seen it early on in therapy. That would be clearly a definition of intolerance. And we’ve all dealt with it, and fortunately, you require to hold the drug and then deal with the consequences of this—think of an alternative basically.
Now resistance on the other hand requires that people actually are aware of what this definition means. What is resistance? Resistance means that you treat patients with at least 3 months of Hydrea, at 2 g or the highest possible dose, and you still continue to have signs of active disease. So, what is that exactly? Well, that’s continuation of requirements for phlebotomy, lack of hematological responses, and continuing to have symptoms related to splenomegaly, constitutional symptoms, and, therefore, you can deem the patient as resistant to the drug.
In the paper that had assessed the likelihood of this developing, it appears as though this could develop later on in the course of therapy like I’d already stated. But it also means that you have to have hematologists that are aware of the criteria, and, look to see how their patient is doing on those agents. So, first and foremost, it’s familiarity with the criteria.
There are several options for treating patients who have polycythemia vera. You have a low- dose patient, perhaps phlebotomy, and a low-dose aspirin is reasonable. If you have a patient who has high-risk disease and you need cytoreduction, there are several options. Hydrea is one of the most commonly utilized. You may utilize it in conjunction with phlebotomy, but at some point, those patients should become phlebotomy-free. Alternatively, interferon is the other agent that people utilize. I have utilized it for young women who are of child-bearing age and they are interested in having a familyhence Hydrea is not an option—so then interferon is reasonable. And obviously, there are clinical trials comparing and contrasting the 2 agents upfront and we have to wait for the data.
The other option is anagrelide. I have not utilized anagrelide for patients with PV. Anagrelide is an option, but I don’t think we utilize it; it’s a personal choice. That’s all I can say.
Finally, for the patient population that has demonstrated resistance or intolerance, there’s an FDA-approved JAK1/2 inhibitor, known as ruxolitinib, and the data are out there to support its utilization in this patient population.
Transcript edited for clarity.
August 2014
February 2016
August 2016
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