Objectively assessed disease activity and drug persistence during ustekinumab treatment in a nationwide real-world Crohn's disease cohort

Abstract

<b>Objective</b><div><div>Long-term evidence on ustekinumab treatment response and persistence in patients with Crohn's disease in a real-world setting is scarce. We performed a retrospective nationwide chart review study of long-term clinical outcomes in Crohn's disease patients treated with ustekinumab.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Methods</b></div><div>The study was conducted in 17 Finnish hospitals and included adult Crohn's disease patients who received an initial intravenous dose of ustekinumab during 2017-2018. Disease activity data were collected at baseline, 16 weeks, and 1 year from health records.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Results</b></div><div>The study included 155 patients. The disease was stricturing or penetrating in 69 and 59% had prior Crohn's disease-related surgeries, and 97% had a treatment history of at least one biologic agent. Of 93 patients with >= 1 year of follow-up, 77 (83%) were still on ustekinumab at 1 year. In patients with data available, from baseline to the 1-year follow-up the simple endoscopic score for Crohn's disease (SES-CD) decreased from 10 to 3 (P = 0.033), C-reactive protein from 7 to 5 mg/L, (P < 0.001) and faecal calprotectin from 776 to 305 μg/g (P < 0.001).</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Conclusions</b></div><div>Ustekinumab treatment in patients with highly refractory Crohn's disease resulted in high long-term treatment persistence and significantly reduced disease activity, assessed with objective markers for intestinal inflammatory activity.</div></div>