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Vedolizumab for Ulcerative Colitis

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 7/1/2012 4:23 AM (GMT 0)
Anyone tried clinical trials using Vedolizumab for Ulcerative Colitis?  Has it helped? What are your thoughts?  I heard it is coming out in 2013 and has good potential in treatment of UC.
Posted 12/3/2012 5:25 AM (GMT 0)
My many years of various drugs for UC including Remicade, Humira and some other trial tend to confirm that it is very individual specific. I have had no joy with any clinical trial to-date and the usual suspects were not working at all (long term, high dose steroids, imuran etc etc).

I went on the Vedolizumab trial and it has been nothing short of a miracle. My colon was probably going to be removed early in the new year (20-40 motions of blood and mucous a day, sitting on the toilet for the better part of every day etc). Now I am in almost complete remission after two (had third last week) Vedolizumab infusions.

So, for me it is fantastic. I have a lot of healing to do, but no blood, no mucous and motions down to 3-6/day.

As I said, these drugs seem very person specific. I have no idea whether it might work for you, but it is absolutely worth a try (especially if you are at the end of the road drug-wise).

Good luck
KB
Posted 12/3/2012 6:32 AM (GMT 0)
The benefit of these Anti-alpha seems stronger for people who have not responded to anti-TNF like Remicade. I took in a CCFA webinar last month. There was a slide that said:

47% responded
41% actually had mucosal healing
17% achieved full remission

this is after the 6 week study. If taken longer, the numbers may go up.

for those who had not responded sufficiently to anti-TNF, they may have lowered the numbers:

prior TNF
only 39% response, 10% remission

no prior TNF
uptp 53% responded, 23% got remission.


While the numbers may have been better at 6 weeks or 12, even more should be helped with some sort of maintenance or followup regimen.

we will need to see if after 3 months or 6 months or after 1 year, the drug just stops working, or even if intolorance develops.
Posted 12/3/2012 9:33 AM (GMT 0)
To be honest, I was quite disappointed with the results of the trials. I was hoping that Vedolizumab would be more successful.
Posted 12/3/2012 11:54 AM (GMT 0)
WTH??!! 17% remission?? are you kidding me? For a drug with such strong side effects, expensive, and such a lot of research behind it i would expect something more effective. Like, i dunno, 40% remission??
Meh...so disappointing.
Posted 12/3/2012 12:43 PM (GMT 0)
From what I understand Vedolizumab has very few, if any, side effects and may be considered a first line treatment option. It does not have all the nasty possibilities of the other biologics.
Posted 12/3/2012 3:36 PM (GMT 0)
it definitely is free of the risk of brain infection that the earlier anti-alpha had.

I think 17% for 6 weeks is not too bad. Some of the 41% with mucosal healing might go into remission over the next month or two.

but it does make 5-asa look good dosen't it
Posted 12/3/2012 3:52 PM (GMT 0)
DBwithUC, what study are you looking at? I saw two that showed 40%+ remission.

At the end of a year of maintenance treatment, patients kept on the more frequent vedolizumab dosage tested, 300 mg delivered intravenously once every 4 weeks, showed a potent efficacy effect, surpassing the placebo group in corticosteroid-free clinical remissions by 31 percentage points (45% vs. 14%).
http://www.internalmedicinenews.com/news/conference-news/digestive-disease-week-2012/single-article/vedolizumab-scores-on-safety-efficacy-for-ulcerative-colitis/dc7ee9857e7f6f4b9a47aac0dfe39f36.html

In an intent-to-treat analysis of data 52 weeks after the initial dose, Dr. Feagan’s team found that 44.8% (56 of 125) of patients who received the monthly dose of the drug and 41.8% (51 of 122) of bimonthly drug recipients achieved clinical remission, which they defined as a Mayo score of 2 or lower and no individual subscores greater than 1. Remission rates in both groups were significantly higher than the 15.9% (20 of 126) rate of remission at 52 weeks among clinical responders randomized to receive placebo following the initial induction phase (P<0.0001).
http://www.gastroendonews.com/ViewArticle.aspx?d=In%2Bthe%2BNews&d_id=187&i=July+2012&i_id=867&a_id=21296
Posted 12/3/2012 5:51 PM (GMT 0)
I am looking at the slide that was used in the CCFA webinar. I am not reading the original study, and the slide did nto give a proper citation. It reported results of some phase-ii trial at the end of 6 weeks. Sounds like you have data from a much longer run, which is consistient with my supposition of more benefit over time.
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