Infliximab Exposure Associates With Radiologic Evidence of Healing in Patients With Crohn's Disease

Abstract

Background & aims: Higher infliximab trough levels are associated with clinical and endoscopic remission in patients with Crohn's disease (CD). We investigated pharmacodynamic features of infliximab and radiological healing.

Methods: We performed a substudy of the TAILORIX trial (patients with active luminal CD in Europe, treated with infliximab), analyzing baseline and week 54 magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) data. MREs were scored using the MaRIA score by blinded central readers. Radiologic response and remission were defined, based on MaRIA criteria in all segments, as scores below 11 and 7, respectively. We collected data on infliximab trough levels, biomarkers, and endoscopic findings. Our primary aim was to evaluate pharmacodynamic features associated with radiologic response and remission, based on MRE assessments at baseline and at 54 weeks after initiation of infliximab therapy.

Results: We analyzed data from 36 patients (50% female; median age 35.7 years; interquartile age range, 25.6-48.6 years; median disease duration, 1.5 months; interquartile duration range, 0.6-22.4 months). At week 54 of treatment, 36.4% of patients had a radiologic response, 30.3% of patients were in remission, and 71% had endoscopic features of remission. At baseline, there was a correlation between the CD endoscopic index of severity and MaRIA scores (κ = 0.46; P = .008), but we found no correlation at week 54 (κ = 0.06; P = .75). Radiologic remission correlated with infliximab trough level at week 14 (P = .049) when the infliximab trough level cut-off value was set at 7.8 μg/mL (area under the curve, 0.74; 75% sensitivity; 86% specificity; 90% negative predictive value; 57% positive predictive value). Radiologic response correlated with infliximab trough levels at week 14 (P = .048) when the infliximab trough level cut-off value was set at 7.8 μg/mL (area under the curve, 0.73; 70% sensitivity; 90% specificity; 86% negative predictive value; 78% positive predictive value) and with continuous pharmacologic evidence of response (infliximab trough levels above 5.0 μg/mL at all time points) (P = .034).

Conclusions: In a substudy of data from the TAILORIX trial of patients with active luminal CD, we identified a relationship between exposure to infliximab and radiologic evidence of outcomes.

Keywords: Anti-TNF Agent; Biomarker; Prognostic Factor; Response to Therapy; TAILORIX.