Drug survival of secukinumab, ustekinumab, and certolizumab pegol in psoriasis: a 2-year, monocentric, retrospective study

Abstract

Objective

To investigate the drug survival of secukinumab (SEC), ustekinumab (UST), and certolizumab pegol (CZP) in real-world conditions and to identify the predictors and reasons for treatment discontinuation.

Methods

We performed a 2-year retrospective single-center analysis of 110 treatment courses in 98 patients with moderate to severe plaque-type psoriasis and/or psoriatic arthritis (SEC n = 68; UST n = 29; and CZP n = 13). Drug survival was examined using the Kaplan–Meier analysis and the influence of demographic factors on drug survival with Cox regression analysis.

Results

Drug survival rates at 12 and 18 months were respectively 68.5% and 59% for the entire study population, 85% and 69% for UST, 68% and 59% for SEC, and 34% for CZP. Both UST and SEC showed a significantly longer survival rate compared to CZP (p<.05), but not between each other. A total of 30 treatment discontinuations were observed, predominantly due to loss of efficacy and adverse events. Treatment selection predicted the survival rate. Other predictors could not be identified.

Conclusions

Drug survival is the resultant of many factors such as long-term effectiveness, safety, compliance, and convenience of use. UST and SEC had higher retention rates in comparison with CZP.

Keywords:

• Drug survival
• secukinumab
• ustekinumab
• certolizumab pegol

Acknowledgements

Approval status: Reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Lübeck.

Disclosure statement

Dr. Thaçi reports personal fees from AbbVie, Almirall, Amgen, Biogen-Idec, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Celgene, DS-BioPharma, Galapagos, Janssen, Leo-Pharma, Eliu-Lilly, Morphosis, Novartis, Pfizer, Regeneron, Sanofi, Samsung, Sandoz-Hexal, and UCB, outside the submitted work. No conflict of interest with regards to the research work is discussed in the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work is partially funded by Institute and Comprehensive Center for Inflammation Medicine, Lübeck. The research was supported in a part by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under Germany's Excellence Strategy-EXC 2167-390884018 Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation to D. Thaçi.