Eltrombopag therapy for low platelets in patients on azacitidine treatment for myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukaemia

Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) is a disease of the bone marrow characterized by anemia, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia (low red blood cell, white blood cell, and platelet counts). MDS patients with thrombocytopenia who fail standard therapies require regular platelet transfusions which are expensive and inconvenient, and are a risk for further serious bleeding complications. The new treatment of MDS using azacitidine has shown to increase the survival rate of MDS patients including to improve platelet production over time. However, in the early cycles of treatment with azacitidine, the low platelet counts tend to exacerbate before they provide any clinical benefit. Eltrombopag is a drug designed to activate the thrombopoietin receptor. Eltrombopag has been able to increase platelet counts in healthy volunteers and in patients with chronic Immune Thrombocytopenia Purpura (ITP), a disease where patients destroy their own platelets very rapidly and thus develop thrombocytopenia. Eltrombopag is administered orally and is Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved for the treatment of thrombocytopenia in patients with chronic ITP who failed to respond to standard treatment. This study is a single arm pilot study to evaluate the safety and tolerability of Eltrombopag in the treatment of low platelet counts in adult subjects with MDS treated using azacitidine This study also incorporates a correlative laboratory component designed to determined the mechanism of action of 5-azacitidine +/- Eltrombopag and to determine a baseline profile which may predict those most responsive. These studies will incorporate gene methylation and expression, and immunoprofiling.