Association of Treatment Effects on Early Change in Urine Protein and Treatment Effects on GFR Slope in IgA Nephropathy: An Individual Participant Meta-analysis

An early change in proteinuria is considered a reasonably likely surrogate end point in immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) and can be used as a basis for accelerated approval of therapies, with verification in a postmarketing confirmatory trial. Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) slope is a recently validated surrogate end point for chronic kidney disease progression and may be considered as the end point used for verification. We undertook a meta-analysis of clinical trials in IgAN to compare treatment effects on change in proteinuria versus change in estimated GFR (eGFR) slope.Individual patient-level meta-analysis.Individual data of 1,037 patients from 12 randomized trials.Randomized trials of IgAN with proteinuria measurements at baseline and 6 (range, 2.5-14) months and at least a further 1 year of follow-up for the clinical outcome.For each trial, we estimated the treatment effects on proteinuria and on the eGFR slope, computed as the total slope starting at baseline or the chronic slope starting 3 months after randomization. We used a Bayesian mixed-effects analysis to relate the treatment effects on proteinuria to effects on GFR slope across these studies and developed a prediction model for the treatment effect on the GFR slope based on the effect on proteinuria.Across all studies, treatment effects on proteinuria accurately predicted treatment effects on the total slope at 3 years (median R2 = 0.88; 95% Bayesian credible interval [BCI], 0.06-1) and on the chronic slope (R2 = 0.98; 95% BCI, 0.29-1). For future trials, an observed treatment effect of approximately 30% reduction in proteinuria would confer probabilities of at least 90% for nonzero treatment benefits on the total and chronic slopes of eGFR. We obtained similar results for proteinuria at 9 and 12 months and total slope at 2 years.Study population restricted to 12 trials of small sample size, leading to wide BCIs. There was heterogeneity among trials with respect to study design and interventions.These results provide new evidence supporting that early reduction in proteinuria can be used as a surrogate end point for studies of chronic kidney disease progression in IgAN.