The impact of thrombosis on myelofibrosis (MF), mortality, and formation of solid tumors in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) has been discussed in a new review article published in the Blood Cancer Journal.
For the review, the authors, led by Alessandro M. Vannucchi, MD, from Università di Firenze in Florence, Italy, analyzed large personal patient databases of MPN.
Arterial and venous thrombosis seem to be associated with a more aggressive disease course, they said.
Moreover, biomarkers of inflammation like the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio seem to be associated with the aggressiveness of polycythemia vera and essential thrombocythemia, linking thrombosis to the risk of secondary cancer, the researchers added.
They suggested that this means there may be a common inflammatory pathway shared between cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
“These data underscore the need for new studies to validate these associations, delineate the sequence of events, and identify therapeutic targets to mitigate thrombotic events and potentially improve overall patient outcomes in [myeloproliferative neoplasms],” they concluded.
They highlighted the limitations of the viewpoint, including the fact that most of the studies that they reviewed were retrospective and the lack of investigations on the effect of cytoreductive therapy and associated comorbidities.