Miguel Regueiro, MD, an expert in gastroenterology at the Cleveland Clinic, reflects on the most important and clinically relevant studies on ulcerative colitis presented at the American College of Gastroenterology 2020 virtual annual scientific meeting. He starts with four studies from the OCTAVE clinical trials program. These studies examined the efficacy and safety of tofacitinib after treatment interruption and in pregnant women, presenting almost 7 years of follow-up. Long-term follow-up remains the theme as he turns to the VISIBLE open-label extension of treatment with vedolizumab SC, where the long-term safety of the drug was confirmed and clinical remission rates were maintained out to 2 years. He reports that a post-hoc analysis of the VARSITY trial appeared to show that vedolizumab achieves greater early control vs adalimumab. Dr Regueiro next discusses the late-breaking, phase 3 True North study of ozanimod for moderate to severe ulcerative colitis before finishing up with an analysis of the long-term trends for colectomy since the turn of the century.
Miguel D. Regueiro, MD, Chairman, Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition; Vice-Chair, Digestive Disease Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio.
Miguel D. Regueiro, MD, has disclosed the following relevant financial relationships: Serve(d) as an advisor and/or consultant for: AbbVie; Janssen; UCB; Takeda; Pfizer; Miraca Labs; Amgen; Celgene; Seres; Allergan; Genentech; Gilead; Salix; Prometheus. Received unrestricted educational grants from: AbbVie; Janssen; UCB; Pfizer; Takeda; Salix; Shire. Received research support from AbbVie; Janssen; Takeda; Pfizer.