Taku Kobayashi

poster at ISFA 2019 pag 53

There are two types of extracorporeal therapy for treating active ulcerative colitis (UC), granulocyte and monocyte adsorption (GMA) and leukocytapheresis (LCAP). Although Sawada et al reported the efficacy of LCAP by the randomized controlled trial (Sawada K et al. Am J Gastroenterol 2005), the larger sham-controlled multicenter trial of GMA failed to prove its efficacy (Sands BE et al. Gastroenterol 2008). Therefore, evidence to show their efficacy relies more on the real-world data, including the post-marketing surveillance (PMS). The large-scale PMS for LCAP was named as REFINE study, involving 847 patients from 116 medical facilities in Japan (Yokoyama Y, Kobayashi T et al. J Crohn Colitis 2014). Adverse events were seen only in 10.3% and the vast majority were mild. The overall clinical remission rate was 68.9%, and the mucosal healing rate was 62.5%. These results were very consistent with the results from PMS of 697 patients treated with GMA, which also demonstrated its real-world effectiveness and safety (Hibi T et al. Dig Liver Dis 2008). In addition, a retrospective observational study aimed to evaluate the clinical outcome at 1 year and identify risk factors for relapse after LCAP was recently conducted among patients who had achieved remission in the PMS (Kobayashi T et al. J Gastroenterol 2018). The 1-year cumulative relapse free rate was 63.6%. Following LCAP, a high clinical activity and a high leukocyte count were associated with a greater risk of relapse. Intensive LCAP was associated with favorable long-term outcomes in corticosteroidrefractory patients. The response rate of re-treatment upon relapse was as high as 85%. These results on the risks of relapse as well as effectiveness of re-treatment may help to overcome the weakness of cytapheresis therapy in maintaining remission. Results from the clinical trial evaluating the clinical efficacy of intermittent maintenance cytapheresis therapy are also warranted.

http://www.atalacia.com/isfa/data/abstract.pdf

Stefano Passalacqua ¹, Pietro Manuel Ferraro, Giampaolo Bresci, Valeria D’Ovidio, Marco Astegiano, Mariabeatrice Principi, Roberto Testa, Renata D’Incà, Daniela Valpiani, Alessandro Armuzzi, Renato Sablich, Flaminia Cavallaro, Francesco Costa, Vincenza Di Leo, Elisabetta Colombo, Alessia Santini, Annalisa Aratari, Pierenrico Lecis, Valeria Saladino, Gabriele Riegler, Marino Marco, Francesca Calella, Chiara Ricci, Maria Luisa Guidi, Giuseppe Repaci, Michele Silla, J Clin Apher. 2011 Dec;26(6):332-7.

Leukocytes are thought to play an important role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel diseases; granulocyte-monocyte adsorptive (GMA) apheresis, an extracorporeal technique aimed at removing activated circulating leukocytes from the blood, may represent a safe and effective therapeutic tool in these patients. The Italian Registry of Therapeutic Apheresis performed an observational, multicentric study involving 24 Gastroenterology Units. In this study, laboratory data and clinical outcomes of 230 patients (148 males, mean age 43.5 years) affected with ulcerative colitis (UC, n = 194) or Crohn’s disease (CD, n = 36) who underwent one or more cycles of GMA were analyzed. Each cycle consisted of five GMA treatments. The patients were followed up for a mean of 8.7 (min. 3 to max. 12) months. At 3 months, positive outcome was achieved in 77.7% of UC patients (72.0% remission, 5.7% clinical response) and 61.3% of CD patients (54.8% remission, 6.5% clinical response). The cumulative proportion of positive outcome at 12 months was 87.1% for UC patients (83.7% remission, 3.4% clinical response) and 77.4% for CD patients (74.2% remission, 3.2% clinical response). No single clinical or laboratory parameter among those analyzed (age, sex, disease characteristics, history of smoking, medication history, baseline values of clinical activity index (CAI)/Crohn’s disease activity index (CDAI), hemoglobin, white blood cells count, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate) was independently associated with clinical outcome. The procedure was well tolerated with no significant adverse effects registered.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22072543/