Targeting epigenetic pathways in acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome: a systematic review of hypomethylating agents trials

BACKGROUND: Aberrant DNA methylation has been identified as a key molecular event regulating the pathogenesis of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS); myeloid neoplasms with an inherent risk of transformation to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Based on the above findings, DNA hypomethylating agents (HMA) have been widely used to treat AML and MDS, especially in elderly patients and in those who are not eligible for allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT). Our goal was to determine if there is any therapeutic advantage of HMA vs. conventional care regimens (CCR) and indirectly compare the efficacy of azacitidine and decitabine in this patient population. METHODS: Eligible studies were limited to randomized controlled trials comparing HMA to CCR in adult patients with AML or MDS. RESULTS: Overall survival (OS) rate was 33.2 vs. 21.4 % (RR 0.83, 95 % CI 0.71–0.98) and overall response rate (ORR) 23.7 vs. 13.4 % (RR 0.87, 95 % CI 0.81–0.93) for HMA and CCR, respectively. In subgroup analyses, only azacitidine treatment showed OS improvement (RR 0.75, 95 % CI 0.64–0.98) and not decitabine. Cytogenetic risk or bone marrow blast count did not have independent prognostic impact. CONCLUSION: Collectively, these results demonstrate that HMA have superior outcomes compared to CCR and suggest that azacitidine in comparison to decitabine, may be more effective. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13148-016-0233-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.