OP39 Shorter disease duration is associated with better outcomes in patients with moderately to severely active Crohn’s Disease treated with risankizumab: Results from the phase 3 ADVANCE, MOTIVATE, and FORTIFY studies
Authors: Peyrin-Biroulet L , Colombel J F , Louis E , Ferrante M , Motoya S , Panaccione R , Torres J , Ungaro R C , Kligys K , Kalabic J , Zambrano J , Zhang Y , D’Haens G R 
Published: January 2022

Background

An association between shorter disease duration and improved clinical efficacy has been shown in post hoc analyses of clinical trial data with biological therapies in Crohn’s disease (CD). The efficacy and safety of risankizumab (RZB) as induction and maintenance therapy have been recently reported. Here, the efficacy of RZB stratified by baseline CD duration is reported.

Methods

In ADVANCE (NCT03105128) and MOTIVATE (NCT03104413), patients with moderately to severely active CD received intravenous (IV) RZB induction therapy or placebo (PBO) for 12 weeks. Patients with clinical response to RZB IV induction were re-randomised in a 52-week maintenance study (FORTIFY, NCT03105102) to receive subcutaneous (SC) RZB or PBO (ie, withdrawal). For this post-hoc analysis, patient subgroups were stratified by years of CD duration at baseline (&lt; 2, 2–5, &gt; 5–10, and &gt; 10 years). Induction analyses focused on patients who received RZB 600 mg IV or PBO for 12 weeks. As all patients who entered maintenance responded to RZB IV induction, maintenance analyses were limited to those patients who responded to induction and then received RZB 360 mg SC for 52 weeks. Clinical and endoscopic outcomes were evaluated using nonresponder imputation incorporating multiple imputation to handle missing data due to impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Safety was assessed throughout the studies.

Results

The induction and maintenance analyses included 527 patients who received RZB 600 mg IV and 141 patients who received RZB 360 mg SC, respectively. At the end of induction (week 12), patients with CD duration of &lt; 2 years achieved higher rates of endoscopic outcomes with IV RZB induction vs patients with longer durations of disease (Figure 1), and regardless of baseline CD duration, greater proportions of RZB-treated patients achieved clinical remission (defined by stool frequency and abdominal pain), endoscopic response, endoscopic remission, and ulcer-free endoscopy vs PBO (P ≤ .05). Clinical remission rates at week 12 were numerically higher in patients with CD duration of &lt; 5 years vs &gt; 5 years (Figure 1). Similar results for improved clinical and endoscopic outcomes associated with shorter disease duration were observed at week 52 with RZB 360 mg SC maintenance treatment (Figure 2). RZB was well tolerated with lower rates of serious adverse events and serious infections vs PBO in induction, across CD duration subgroups.

Conclusion

RZB induction and maintenance therapy was effective and well tolerated with a safety profile generally similar across CD duration subgroups. Achievement of clinical and endoscopic endpoints were higher in patients with shorter duration of CD, suggesting that earlier introduction of RZB therapy may lead to improved outcomes.