Published online Aug 14, 2020. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i30.4428
Peer-review started: April 4, 2020
First decision: April 26, 2020
Revised: July 18, 2020
Accepted: July 30, 2020
Article in press: July 30, 2020
Published online: August 14, 2020
Processing time: 132 Days and 1 Hours
Vedolizumab (VDZ) is a gut selective anti-integrin used for treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC). Evidence needed to assess it efficacy and safety in a real world setting.
Efficacy and safety of VDZ needs to be assessed, involving multiple inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) centers from two countries to reduce physician, site and country biases.
In this real world study, we aim to assess the clinical response, clinical, endoscopic remission and the factors influencing them in UC patients from Australia and Oxford in United Kingdom treated with VDZ.
Retrospective review of prospectively entered patient database, treated with VDZ. Three hundred and three UC patients from 14 Australian centers and Oxford (United Kingdom) were included. Clinical response and remission was assessed at 3, 6 and 12 mo using Mayo score across all centers. Endoscopic remission was assessed at 6 mo using mayo endoscopic score in Australia and ulcerative colitis endoscopic score of severity score in Oxford. Cox regression models and Kaplan Meier curves were performed to assess the time to remission, time to failure and the covariates influencing them. Safety was assessed through adverse event reporting.
Clinical response for all patients was 79% at 3 mo and number of patients achieving clinical remission increased from 3 mo (56%) to 6 mo (62%) and remained almost stable at 12 mo (60%). No significant difference was observed between the two countries in achieving clinical remission at all points and a significantly greater proportion of Australian patients achieved mucosal healing compared to Oxford, which could be due to more patients using concomitant immunomodulation in Australia. Anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) exposed patients were almost twice more likely to lose response to VDZ compared to anti-TNF naïve patients but no difference in outcomes were observed between patients who had a primary and secondary loss of response to anti-TNF agents. The role of concomitant immunomodulation in achieving above outcomes need to be elucidated in future prospective studies.
VDZ can be safely and effectively used to treat UC patients in a real world setting. However patients who had prior anti-TNF therapy were more likely to fail compared to anti-TNF naïve patients.
VDZ use was reviewed in real world setting involving multiple IBD centers from two countries. This study helps physicians find VDZ its place in the treatment algorithm of complex IBD patient management. Future prospective studies are needed to evaluate the benefit of using concomitant immunomodulation with VDZ.