REAL-WORLD EFFECTIVENESS OF USTEKINUMAB IN PATIENTS WITH ULCERATIVE COLITIS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Authors: Burbage Sabree , Harvey Niamh , Godwin Bridget , Meadows Rachael , Knight Hannah , Zhao Ruizhi , Kachroo Sumesh 
Published: January 2024

BACKGROUND

Primary treatment goals for ulcerative colitis (UC) are to induce and maintain long-term disease remission and reduce the prevalence of symptoms such as bowel urgency and abdominal pain. Ustekinumab (UST) is a biologic approved for treating adult patients with moderate-severe UC, but real-world effectiveness data remain limited.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to assess real-world effectiveness of UST in patients with UC.

METHODS

Data were drawn from the Adelphi Real World UC Disease Specific Programme™, a cross-sectional survey with retrospective data collection of gastroenterologists and their patients in the United States of America (USA) from December 2022–September 2023. Two samples were utilised; a sample where physicians provided data for their next six consecutive patients with UC, and an oversample where physicians provided data for their next four consulting patients with UC receiving UST. Patients receiving UST for &gt;1 day at time of consultation (assumed to have received ≥1 UST dose) from either sample were included in the analysis. Data collected included clinical status, disease duration and location, symptoms and treatment profiles. Remission defined by Mayo score was reported separately for advanced therapy (AT)-naïve (UST received as first AT) and AT-experienced (UST received as second or later line of AT) patients. Descriptive statistics for each variable were reported for patients with known data. McNemar’s test was used for symptom prevalence and disease severity comparisons.

RESULTS

Data for 160 patients were included in this study from 50 physicians. Patients had been diagnosed with UC for median (interquartile range; IQR) of 2.2 (0.5, 4.5) years; mean (standard deviation) age was 39.7 (13.0) years and 50.0% of patients were male. UST was received as first AT for 68.1% of patients, second AT for 18.1% and third AT for 11.3%. Median (IQR) time on UST was 8.7 (4.1, 18.6) months, with 83.9% of patients receiving UST for ≥3 months. For patients in maintenance phase of treatment, 65.8% were on UST USA label dose, 17.9% were receiving an increased and 16.3% decreased dose. According to Mayo scores, 53.6% of AT-naïve and 58.3% of AT-experienced patients were in remission at consultation (Table 1). Improvement in disease severity was evidenced by a reduced proportion of patients with moderate/severe disease at consultation (34.4%) compared to prior to initiation of UST (90.9%; p&lt;0.01). Similarly, there was a significantly lower prevalence of all symptoms between UST initiation and consultation, including abdominal pain (72.1% vs 30.2%), bowel urgency (55.1% vs 22.0%) and bloody diarrhea (54.4% vs 17.6%) (all p&lt;0.01; Figure 1).

CONCLUSION

Our study showed real-world effectiveness of UST in patients with UC in the USA; most patients receiving UST achieved remission and demonstrated reduced prevalence of symptoms following UST initiation.

Table 1 Physician-reported characteristics of patients receiving ustekinumab at the time of consultation.

Figure 1 Physician-reported prevalence of (A) symptoms and (B) moderate/severe disease severity prior to initiation of ustekinumab and at time of consultation.