Guardians of the tumor microenvironment: the neutrophil saga

In this issue of Blood, Rivera et al 1 demonstrate that aberrant mature neutrophil populations are capable of promoting myeloma by inhibiting T-cell proliferation, which can be therapeutically reversible by CXC chemokine receptor 2 (CXCR2) inhibition.Myeloma therapy has significantly improved outcomes for patients, especially with novel therapies now resulting in cure in a subset of patients. 2Their data show the therapeutic feasibility of targeting immunosuppressive myeloid cells, which could be broadly applicable for treatment for the myeloma patients still facing suboptimal outcomes with modern therapy.