This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Patients with SLE responded differently to sifalimumab by region

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

Regional differences were observed in the response to the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus with sifalimumab, according to data presented from a phase 2b study.

A group of 431 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) were randomly assigned to receive either sifalimumab — a compound that targets the type 1 interferon pathway — intravenously at 200 mg, 600 mg or 1,200 mg monthly or placebo for 52 weeks. Patients were grouped into two geographic regions based on the expectation of high or low standard of care response. Asia, Central America, Eastern Europe and South America were chosen as Region 1, the high expected response to standard of care group, comprising 296 patients, and North America, South Africa and Western Europe were selected as Region 2, the low expected standard of care response group, which comprised 135 patients.

More patients in both regions who received sifalimumab had greater response rates compared with placebo, but patients in Region 1 had greater improvements over Region 2. However, the differences did not correlate with disease activity scores, according to the researchers.

Some differences in demographic and clinical characteristics were noted between the two groups. Mean weight, mean age, median time to diagnosis until randomization, mean Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC)/American College of Rheumatology Damage Index scores and standard of care were higher in Region 2. Standard of care included the use of antimalarials, azathioprine, methotrexate, mycophenolate, and corticosteroids and dose. – by Shirley Pulawski

Reference:

Kamashta M, et al. Paper #AB0183. Presented at: European League Against Rheumatism Annual European Congress of Rheumatology; June 10-13, 2015; Rome.

Disclosure s : Khamashta reports receiving grant/research support from Bayer. He is also a consultant for INOVA diagnostics, Medimmune, GSK and UCB. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.