P344 Effectiveness of ustekinumab in refractory Crohn’s disease: A real-life experience in a tertiary referral centre

Abstract

Background Ustekinumab (UST) is increasingly used in Belgium for moderate to severe Crohn’s disease (CD). The aim of the current study was to describe the real-life experience with UST in our tertiary centre. Methods A retrospective study was performed in patients with CD who were started on UST between December 2017 and August 2019. All patients received an initial intravenous (IV) dose of 6 mg/kg body-weight, followed by 8-weekly 90 mg subcutaneous UST. The clinical and endoscopic response was assessed by the physician after induction and during the maintenance phase. Results In total, 67 patients were included, of which the majority was refractory to anti-TNF and/or vedolizumab (Table 1). The median duration of treatment was 15 months (IQR 7–25). The clinical and endoscopic response is shown in Table 2. UST was discontinued in 16 patients (23.9%) after a median of 27.5 weeks (IQR 12.3–52.8). Reasons for discontinuation were a loss of response (LOR), including 5 patients who were in need of surgery (n = 10), primary non response (n = 3), malignancy (n = 1), adverse event (n = 1) and patients’ wish (n = 1). In 29 patients (43.3%) optimisation of UST was necessary due to partial response (n = 13) or due to LOR (n = 16). The optimisation consisted of an IV re-induction in 2 patients, shortening of the dosage interval in 16 patients and a combination of both in 11 patients. The effect of optimisation could be assessed in 22 patients: 10 patients regained a good clinical response and 5 patients attained clinical remission after optimisation. In 7 patients UST was stopped despite optimisation, most often due to persistent LOR. Conclusion In this tertiary population of refractory CD patients, treatment with UST resulted in a clinical response in more than 70% of patients. Of note, 43.3% needed optimisation, with a good clinical response in almost half of the cases. The endoscopic response in this preliminary analysis was modest.

Real-World Evidence of the Effectiveness and Safety of Ustekinumab for the Treatment of Crohn’s Disease: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

“…A total of 63 studies (including 8529 patients) met the inclusion criteria and were finally included in the systematic review and meta-analysis ( Figure 1 ) [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , ...…”

Re-induction With Intravenous Ustekinumab in Patients With Crohn’s Disease and a Loss of Response to This Therapy

“…Published data on the efficacy of IV re-induction with UST in patients with Crohn's disease who have lost the response obtained with this therapy are very scarce, and these series include a limited number of patients. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] In a multicenter, retrospective cohort of patients responding to UST, one third of them (n = 35) lost response. Of these, IV re-induction was performed in 7 cases, and the treatment was effective in 4 (57.1%) patients.…”