There has been growing evidence that the combination of hypomethylating agents like azacitidine with immune checkpoint inhibitors could be a highly potent treatment option in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). We interviewed Naval Daver, MD, of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, at the 23rd Congress of the European Hematological Association (EHA) 2018 in Stockholm, Sweden, about his recent studies exploring this combination. He discusses the data from these trials, including NCT02397720, highlighting the key findings, as well as the close relationship between pre-therapy CD3 and CD8 presence in the bone marrow with response rate. He explains how this correlation implies that future studies could use bone marrow CD3/8 as biomarkers to predict which patients would respond best to this treatment, greatly increasing its efficacy.
Azacitidine with checkpoint inhibitors for AML and MDS
