Tocilizumab for Treatment of Steroid Refractory Acute Graft-versus-Host Disease

January 30, 2020 updated by: William R. Drobyski, MD, Medical College of Wisconsin

Phase I-II Study Using Tocilizumab for Treatment of Steroid Refractory Acute Graft-versus-Host Disease

This trial designed to evaluate the toxicity and efficacy of tocilizumab in the treatment of steroid refractory acute graft versus host disease (GVHD).

Study Overview

Status

Terminated

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Patients who underwent an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, with biopsy proven GVHD, active acute GVHD requiring systemic immune suppressive therapy and that failed or did not respond to first line of therapy (corticosteroids ± other agent).

Tocilizumab will be administered intravenously at a dose of 8 mg/kg once every three weeks. Patients with documented responses will continue to receive treatment at 8 mg/kg once every 3 weeks for at least two months (day 56). Patients that have some degree of response but without complete resolution of signs and symptoms of acute GVHD may continue to receive 8 mg/kg on a 3-week cycle until complete response is achieved or lack of further improvement. In patients who are beyond day 56 and whose GVHD has resolved, the dose of Tocilizumab will be reduced to 4 mg/kg every 3 weeks. Subsequent discontinuation of Tocilizumab will occur once patients are off other immune suppressive medications (including extracorporeal photopheresis, ECP) or are receiving sub therapeutic levels of immunosuppression (i.e., Tacrolimus (FK) levels <5 ng/mL) or prednisone dose <20 mg/day (or equivalent) and are free of acute GVHD signs or symptoms for at least one month.

Patients who fulfill criteria of progression of GVHD not in the setting of immunosuppressive taper, no response of GVHD or require initiation of other immune suppressive treatment for GVHD will have Tocilizumab discontinued.

Tocilizumab shall be discontinued and not re-instituted if any one of the following criteria is met. The patient will be taken off study drug therapy at that point, but still followed for primary and secondary study endpoints. A response assessment will be made at the time of therapy discontinuation and at subsequent defined study endpoints. The patient will not be replaced on study. Follow-up data will be required unless consent for data collection is withdrawn:

  • Additional systemic GVHD therapy is added for disease progression or non-response
  • Steroid dose is escalated to ≥ 2.5 mg/kg/day of prednisone (or methylprednisolone equivalent of 2 mg/kg/day) for GVHD progression or no response
  • Development of toxicity that requires withholding of study medication for more then 14 days

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

14

Phase

  • Phase 2
  • Phase 1

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • Wisconsin
      • Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, 53226
        • Froedtert Hospital/Medical College of Wisconsin-Clinical Cancer Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

14 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Patients age 18 and older who underwent an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
  • Patients are required to have biopsy proven GVHD.
  • Patients must have active acute GVHD requiring systemic immune suppressive therapy and that failed or did not respond to first line of therapy.

    • First line therapy needs to be a minimum of corticosteroids, methylprednisolone of 1.6mg/kg/day or prednisone of 2mg/kg/day, alone or combined to other agent.
    • Failure of GVHD therapy is defined as flare of signs and symptoms of acute GVHD or progression of GVHD grade after at least 72 hours from starting therapy.
    • No response to GVHD treatment (corticosteroids ± other agent) after a minimum of 7 days of treatment.
  • Patient must be able to give informed consent.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Intolerance or allergy to Tocilizumab
  • Active uncontrolled infection requiring ongoing treatment with antifungals, antibiotics or anti-viral drugs.
  • Relapsed/persistent malignancy requiring rapid immune suppression withdrawal.
  • Liver enzymes: alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) > 3x upper limit of normal.
  • Patients with severe sinusoidal obstruction syndrome who in the judgment of the treating physician are not expected to have normalized bilirubin by day 56 after enrollment.
  • Serum bilirubin > 2x upper limit of normal.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Tocilizumab

Drug: Tocilizumab

Other Names:

Actemra

Tocilizumab will be administered intravenously at a dose of 8 mg/kg once every three weeks for three doses. After Day 56 doses may be decreased to 4mg/kg once every three weeks depending on GVHD response.

Tocilizumab will be administered intravenously at a dose of 8 mg/kg once every three weeks for three doses. After Day 56 doses may be decreased to 4mg/kg once every three weeks depending on GVHD response.
Other Names:
  • Actemra

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of Subjects Achieving Complete or Partial Response at Day 56 After Administration of Tocilizumab
Time Frame: Day 56
Number of subjects achieving Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) score of 0 (complete response); or achieving improvement in one or more organs involved in GVHD without progression in other organs (partial response). CIBMTR score of 0 means no evidence of rash or diarrhea and bilirubin less than 2.0 mg/dl. CIBMTR score of 4 means rash with bullae desquamation, lower gastrointestinal diarrhea more than 1,500 ml, and bilirubin greater than 15.1 mg/dl. Higher score means worse disease.
Day 56

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of Patients With Partial, Mixed or no GVHD Responses
Time Frame: Day 56
Number of subjects achieving improvement in one or more organs involved in GVHD with or without deterioration in another organ (mixed or partial response, respectively); or having received additional immune suppressive therapy (no response).
Day 56
GVHD Flares
Time Frame: Day 90
Number of subjects exhibiting any progression requiring re-escalation of steroid dosing or initiation of additional topical or systemic therapy after achieving an initial complete or partial response prior to Day 90.
Day 90
Discontinuation of Immunosuppression
Time Frame: Day 56, Day 180 and Day 365
Number of subjects for whom immunosuppressive therapy (corticosteroid, cyclosporine, tacrolimus, sirolimus, etc.) was discontinued. This will be evaluated at Day 56, Day 180 and Day 365.
Day 56, Day 180 and Day 365
Overall Survival
Time Frame: 1 year
Number of subjects alive at one year.
1 year
Number of Subjects Experiencing at Least One Serious Adverse Event or Grade 3 Non-serious Adverse Event
Time Frame: Day 56
Number of subjects experiencing at least one serious adverse event or adverse event of CTCAE grade 3, 4, or 5 at Day 56 following the initiation of tocilizumab therapy.
Day 56
Disease-free Survival
Time Frame: 6 and 12 months
Number of subjects alive and not experiencing GVHD signs or symptoms at 6 and 12 months. At the six month time point, seven subjects had expired. At the 12 month time point, 10 subjects had expired.
6 and 12 months
Non-relapse Mortality
Time Frame: 6 months
Number of subjects expiring from causes other than relapse of GVHD disease.
6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: William R Drobyski, MD, Medical College of Wisconsin

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

August 8, 2011

Primary Completion (Actual)

February 17, 2016

Study Completion (Actual)

September 29, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 16, 2011

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 18, 2011

First Posted (Estimate)

November 21, 2011

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

February 17, 2020

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 30, 2020

Last Verified

January 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • MCW-PRO15904

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

No

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

Yes

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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