Fatigue, pale skin, brittle bones: people affected by a certain bone marrow disease often suffer from several serious symptoms at the same time. A research team in Dresden has now investigated a substance that could potentially target two of these problems simultaneously. The results were published in the journal HemaSphere.
The disease is called myelodysplastic neoplasia, or MDS for short. In people with MDS, the bone marrow produces too few healthy blood cells, often leading to anemia. At the same time, bones can become more fragile because inflammatory processes in the bone marrow damage bone structure. MDS is considered a precursor to leukemia, a form of blood cancer. Existing treatments have often focused on individual aspects of the disease rather than addressing multiple processes at once.
Why MDS research matters
In myelodysplastic neoplasia, treatments have traditionally focused mainly on impaired blood formation. At the same time, inflammatory processes in the bone marrow are attracting growing attention because they may also influence bone loss and disease progression. Substances that could affect several of these processes simultaneously are therefore considered especially promising. The next step will be to further develop the substance for possible clinical studies. “From my perspective, this would be the next logical step toward an integrative treatment strategy that considers both blood formation and bone health and could improve long-term care, especially for patients with low-risk MDS,” says Dr. Katja Sockel, a specialist in internal medicine and hematology.
The collaboration between a biologist and a physician was a deliberate part of the Dresden research approach. “Joint research by a biologist and a physician working as a tandem has proven highly successful in Dresden for tackling complex cancer research projects,” says Prof. Martin Bornhäuser, Director of Medical Clinic 1 and one of the managing directors of the NCT/UCC Dresden. Several research groups from Dresden University Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine at Technische Universität Dresden were involved in the study..
Publication:
Wobus, M., Weidner, H., Wehner, R., Baumann, A.-L., Möbus, K., Balaian, E., Törngren, M., Vahtola, E., Eriksson, H., Winter, S., Platzbecker, U., Chavakis, T., Hofbauer, L.C., Rauner, M., Bornhäuser, M. and Sockel, K. (2026), Preclinical efficacy of tasquinimod in myelodysplastic neoplasms: Restoring erythropoiesis and mitigating bone loss. HemaSphere, 10: e70352.
