In this review, we tell the IFN story in MPNs from the very beginning in the 1980s up to 2018 and describe the perspectives for IFN-alpha2 treatment of MPNs in the future.
In recent years, major molecular remissions have been observed in patients with JAK2-positive chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) after therapy with IFN-α.
Treatment of polycythemia vera (PV) and primary myelofibrosis (PMF) CD34(+) cells with low doses of RG7112 and Peg-IFNα 2a before their transplantation into immune-deficient mice decreased the degree of donor-derived chimerism as well as the JAK2V617F allele burden, indicating that these drugs can each alone or in combination deplete MPN HSCs.
These observations have resulted in a number of recent clinical trials utilizing IFNα in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), systemic mast cell disease, hypereosinophilic syndrome and the Philadelphia chromosome-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) with promising outcomes.