Long-term efficacy and safety of tocilizumab (TCZ) in adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD) mostly derive from small case series. Herein we report a registry-based study investigating TCZ efficacy and ...safety in a cohort of patients with AOSD evaluated by clinical and serum inflammatory markers as well as drug retention rate analysis.
This is an international multicentre study analyzing data from patients with AOSD regularly enrolled in the AIDA registry. TCZ efficacy was evaluated between baseline and last follow-up assessment in terms of changes in the Pouchot score and laboratory findings. Drug-retention rate was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method, while Cox-regression analysis was employed to detect potential predictive factors of treatment withdrawal.
Data from 31 patients (15 men, 16 women) refractory to the conventional therapies and treated with TCZ were extracted from the AIDA registry. Mean ± SD time of treatment duration with TCZ was 24.32 ± 20.57 months. Median (IRQ) Pouchot score significantly decreased throughout the study period (p=0.001) with a significant difference between baseline 2.00 (4.00) and 6 month-follow-up 0.00 (0.00) (p=0.003) and between baseline and last follow-up assessment 0.00 (0.00) (p=0.032), while no differences were observed between 6 month-evaluation and last follow-up assessment (p=0.823). Similarly, laboratory parameters significantly decreased from baseline to the last follow-up visit. With regard to drug survival, cumulative TCZ retention rate at 12-, 24-, and 36-month follow-up visit were 83.1%, 71.7% and 63.7%, respectively, without significant differences between biologic naïve patients and those previously treated with other biologics (p=0.329). Likewise, no significant differences were observed between chronic articular course of AOSD and other types of disease course (p=0.938) or between patients co-administered with conventional immunosuppressants and patients receiving TCZ as monotherapy (p=0.778). Cox-regression analysis identified no variable associated with a higher hazard of treatment withdrawal. Treatment was discontinued in 9 patients due to long-term remission (n=4), adverse events (n=2), loss of efficacy (n=1), non-medical reason (n=1) and unspecified cause (n=1). Mean glucocorticosteroids daily dose significantly decreased from baseline (18.36 ± 24.72 mg) to the last follow-up assessment (4.02 ± 4.99 mg, p=0.003).
TCZ allows control of disease activity as well as normalization of serum inflammatory markers in both systemic and chronic articular form of AOSD. Additionally, TCZ displays an excellent drug retention rate while minimizing the risk of long-term exposure to corticosteroids.
This study aims to describe musculoskeletal manifestations (MSM) in children with Behçet’s syndrome (BS), their association with other disease manifestations, response to therapy, and long-term ...prognosis. Data were retrieved from the AIDA Network Behçet’s Syndrome Registry. Out of a total of 141 patients with juvenile BS, 37 had MSM at disease onset (26.2%). The median age at onset was 10.0 years (IQR 7.7). The median follow-up duration was 21.8 years (IQR 23.3). Recurrent oral (100%) and genital ulcers (67.6%) and pseudofolliculitis (56.8%) were the most common symptoms associated with MSM. At disease onset, 31 subjects had arthritis (83.8%), 33 arthralgia (89.2%), and 14 myalgia (37.8%). Arthritis was monoarticular in 9/31 cases (29%), oligoarticular in 10 (32.3%), polyarticular in 5 (16.1%), axial in 7 (22.6%). Over time, arthritis became chronic-recurrent in 67.7% of cases and 7/31 patients had joint erosions (22.6%). The median Behçet's Syndrome Overall Damage Index was 0 (range 0–4). Colchicine was inefficacious for MSM in 4/14 cases (28.6%), independently from the type of MSM (
p
= 0.46) or the concomitant therapy (
p
= 0.30 for cDMARDs,
p
= 1.00 for glucocorticoids); cDMARDs and bDMARDs were inefficacious for MSM in 6/19 (31.4%) and 5/12 (41.7%) cases. The presence of myalgia was associated with bDMARDs inefficacy (
p
= 0.014). To conclude, MSM in children with BS are frequently associated with recurrent ulcers and pseudofolliculitis. Arthritis is mostly mono- or oligoarticular, but sacroiliitis is not unusual. Prognosis of this subset of BS is overall favorable, though the presence of myalgia negatively affects response to biologic therapies. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05200715 (registered on December 18, 2021).
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to point out the design, development and deployment of the AutoInflammatory Disease Alliance (AIDA) International Registry for paediatric and adult patients with ...non-infectious uveitis (NIU).
Methods
This is a physician-driven, population- and electronic-based registry implemented for both retrospective and prospective collection of real-world demographics, clinical, laboratory, instrumental and socioeconomic data of patients with uveitis and other non-infectious inflammatory ocular diseases recruited through the AIDA Network. Data recruitment, based on the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) tool, is thought to collect standardised information for real-life research and has been developed to change over time according to future scientific acquisitions and potentially communicate with other similar instruments. Security, data quality and data governance are cornerstones of this platform.
Results
Ninety-five centres have been involved from 19 countries and four continents from 24 March to 16 November 2021. Forty-eight out of 95 have already obtained the approval from their local ethics committees. At present, the platform counts 259 users (95 principal investigators, 160 site investigators, 2 lead investigators, and 2 data managers). The AIDA Registry collects baseline and follow-up data using 3943 fields organised into 13 instruments, including patient’s demographics, history, symptoms, trigger/risk factors, therapies and healthcare utilization for patients with NIU.
Conclusions
The development of the AIDA Registry for patients with NIU will facilitate the collection of standardised data leading to real-world evidence and enabling international multicentre collaborative research through inclusion of patients and their families worldwide.
Objective
The present manuscript aims to describe an international, electronic-based, user-friendly and interoperable patient registry for monogenic autoinflammatory diseases (mAIDs), developed in ...the contest of the Autoinflammatory Diseases Alliance (AIDA) Network.
Methods
This is an electronic platform, based on the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) tool, used for real-world data collection of demographics, clinical, laboratory, instrumental and socioeconomic data of mAIDs patients. The instrument has flexibility, may change over time based on new scientific acquisitions, and communicate potentially with other similar registries; security, data quality and data governance are corner stones of the platform.
Results
AIDA project will share knowledge and expertise on mAIDs. Since its start, 118 centers from 24 countries and 4 continents have joined the AIDA project. Fifty-nine centers have already obtained the approval from their local Ethics Committees. Currently, the platform counts 337 users (122 Principal Investigators, 210 Site Investigators, 2 Lead Investigators, and 3 data managers). The Registry collects baseline and follow-up data using 3,748 fields organized into 21 instruments, which include demographics, patient history, symptoms, trigger/risk factors, therapies, and healthcare information for mAIDs patients.
Conclusions
The AIDA mAIDs Registry, acts both as a research tool for future collaborative real-life studies on mAIDs and as a service to connect all the figures called to participate. On this basis, the registry is expected to play a pivotal role in generating new scientific evidence on this group of rare diseases, substantially improving the management of patients, and optimizing the impact on the healthcare system. NCT 05200715 available at
https://clinicaltrials.gov
.
This paper describes the creation and preliminary results of a patient-driven registry for the collection of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and patient-reported experiences (PREs) in Behçet's ...disease (BD).
The project was coordinated by the University of Siena and the Italian patient advocacy organization SIMBA (Associazione Italiana Sindrome e Malattia di Behçet), in the context of the AIDA (AutoInflammatory Diseases Alliance) Network programme. Quality of life, fatigue, socioeconomic impact of the disease and therapeutic adherence were selected as core domains to include in the registry.
Respondents were reached via SIMBA communication channels in 167 cases (83.5%) and the AIDA Network affiliated clinical centers in 33 cases (16.5%). The median value of the Behçet's Disease Quality of Life (BDQoL) score was 14 (IQR 11, range 0-30), indicating a medium quality of life, and the median Global Fatigue Index (GFI) was 38.7 (IQR 10.9, range 1-50), expressing a significant level of fatigue. The mean Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) necessity-concern differential was 0.9 ± 1.1 (range - 1.8-4), showing that the registry participants prioritized necessity belief over concerns to a limited extent. As for the socioeconomic impact of BD, in 104 out of 187 cases (55.6%), patients had to pay from their own pocket for medical exams required to reach the diagnosis. The low family socioeconomic status (
< 0.001), the presence of any major organ involvement (
< 0.031), the presence of gastro-intestinal (
< 0.001), neurological (
= 0.012) and musculoskeletal (
= 0.022) symptoms, recurrent fever (
= 0.002), and headache (
< 0.001) were associated to a higher number of accesses to the healthcare system. Multiple linear regression showed that the BDQoL score could significantly predict the global socioeconomic impact of BD (
= 14.519, OR 1.162 CI 0.557-1.766,
< 0.001).
Preliminary results from the AIDA for Patients BD registry were consistent with data available in the literature, confirming that PROs and PREs could be easily provided by the patient remotely to integrate physician-driven registries with complementary and reliable information.