Data from the 28-week extension of the LIBERTY EoE TREET phase 3 clinical trial showed that the anti–interleukin-4/IL-13 antibody dupilumab led to long-term improvement in eosinophil count, histology, and patient-reported symptoms of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) out to 28 weeks. Dupilumab is Food and Drug Administration approved for the treatment of atopic dermatitis, asthma, and chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyposis.
Dr Evan Dellon
Many patients don't respond to the standard therapies of proton pump inhibitors, steroids, or diet. Some evidence suggests that EoE might be driven by type 2 inflammation, and dupilumab's effect on the shared receptor of IL-4 and IL-13 directly counters that pathway.
"The current treatments are [proton pump inhibitors], steroids, or diet — a good proportion of patients don't respond to them. And they're also not targeted," Evan Dellon, MD, professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in an interview. Dellon presented the research at the annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG).
Many of the patients in the new study were steroid refractory, making it a difficult population to treat, according to Dellon. "You can't compare to the steroid-treated patients, but the 6-month data showed about a 60% response rate histologically, which is right up there with where steroids and diet are for easier to treat patients.
