The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7465 p175
18 August 2007

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Azacitidine shows promise for myelodysplastic syndromes

Two-year survival data for patients taking azacitidine — the first of a new class of agents for myelodysplastic syndromes (where dysfunctioning bone marrow results in the production of malformed or immature blood cells) — have been released by biopharmaceutical company Pharmion.

The unpublished, phase III data from 358 patients with “higher-risk” myelodysplastic syndromes show a two-year survival rate of 50.8 per cent for patients given azacitidine (75mg/m²/day subcutaneously for seven consecutive days every 28 days) compared with 26.2 per cent for conventional care (which included supportive care alone, with low-dose cytarabine or with standard chemotherapy; P<0.0001).

Azacitidine-treated patients saw a median survival benefit of 9.4 months over those on conventional care (24.4 versus 15 months; P=0.0001), corresponding to a hazard ratio of 0.58 (95 per cent confidence interval 0.43–0.77).