EHA 2026 | Recent advances in frontline treatment approaches for patients with LR-MDS

I presented also in the MDS session about the first-line treatment in low-risk myelodysplastic syndrome and today we have a chance to have other treatments. Before we had only erythropoietin-stimulating agents but now there is a TGF beta inhibitor, the luspatercept. There was a big phase three clinical trial comparing luspatercept versus EPO. And today we have a long-term follow-up from this study. And with the long-term follow-up, what we observe, we observe that there is a benefit for luspatercept in all subgroups, independently of the EPO level at baseline, independently of the RS status, there is a benefit for the RS negative and also for the RS positive patient, independently also of the transfusion burden at baseline. So this is a very important point. So the luspatercept induced more responses in all the subgroups. And now we have also the median duration of response. And the median duration of response is significantly better in the luspatercept arm. And the study was not designed to explore the overall survival but now we have more than three years of follow-up and we observe a trend to have a benefit also in overall survival in the luspatercept arm. So this is a very important point because today we have the data from the COMMANDS clinical trial but we have also data from the real-life and we have data from the European real-life setting and we have also the data from the US real-life setting and all the data confirm the result from COMMANDS so it’s good. We have a new treatment in the low-risk MDS and it’s better for the patient. presented also in the MDS session about the first-line treatment in low-risk myelodysplastic syndrome and today we have a chance to have other treatments. Before we had only erythropoietin-stimulating agents but now there is a TGF beta inhibitor, the luspatercept. There was a big phase three clinical trial comparing luspatercept versus EPO. And today we have a long-term follow-up from this study. And with the long-term follow-up, what we observe, we observe that there is a benefit for luspatercept in all subgroups, independently of the EPO level at baseline, independently of the RS status, there is a benefit for the RS negative and also for the RS positive patient, independently also of the transfusion burden at baseline. So this is a very important point. So the luspatercept induced more responses in all the subgroups. And now we have also the median duration of response. And the median duration of response is significantly better in the luspatercept arm. And the study was not designed to explore the overall survival but now we have more than three years of follow-up and we observe a trend to have a benefit also in overall survival in the luspatercept arm. So this is a very important point because today we have the data from the COMMANDS clinical trial but we have also data from the real-life and we have data from the European real-life setting and we have also the data from the US real-life setting and all the data confirm the result from COMMANDS so it’s good. We have a new treatment in the low-risk MDS and it’s better for the patient.