Remotely Administered Diet Intervention to Impact Symptom Burden in Myeloproliferative Neoplasm

Myeloproliferative Neoplasm (MPN) is a chronic blood cancer without cure. The major clinical issues in MPN are 1) an increased risk of blood clots 2) symptoms thought to be driven by chronic inflammation which in some cases can be debilitating and 3) progression to acute leukemia. Our current management of MPN focuses on preventing blood clots and relieving symptoms. However, treatments that reduce symptoms such as JAK inhibitors are limited to late stage MPN patients and have significant side effects including immunosuppression, reduction in platelets, and increased risk of skin cancer. Therefore, low risk interventions are sorely needed for MPN patients that can reduce symptoms. Diet represents a low risk way to reduce inflammation, specifically a Mediterranean diet has been found to reduce inflammation in cardiovascular disease. We recently completed a clinical trial that demonstrated MPN patients can adopt a Mediterranean diet if given dietician counseling and curriculum. However, in order to reach a larger group of people a fully remotely administered study is necessary. We are now moving on to a fully online dietary intervention to determine the impact of a Mediterranean diet on symptom burden among MPN patients. However, first we must establish that our fully online intervention and curriculum can be feasibly administered. Here we describe our pilot study as a preparatory study designed to test the performance characteristics and capabilities of study designs, measures, procedures, recruitment criteria, and operational strategies that are under consideration for use in our subsequent, larger study.