Secukinumab in the treatment for patients with juvenile enthesitis related arthritis non-responsive to anti-TNF treatment according the Juvenile Spondyloarthritis Disease Activity Index

OBJECTIVES: To review the effectiveness of secukinumab (SEC) in patients with juvenile idiopathic enthesitis related arthritis (ERA), who had partial or no response on anti-TNF therapy. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective monocentric chart review of patients with ERA, who were treated with SEC, until March 15th 2019. We used the JADAS10 and the Juvenile Spondyloarthritis Disease Activity Index (jspADA) to evaluate response. We analysed the onset of AE and SAE. RESULTS: We analysed 17 patients with ERA. The mean age at the start of the treatment was 19.5 years (SD 4.9, range 13-34 years, median 18.2). The mean disease duration was 6.3 years (SD 3.3, range 2-12 years). The patients received in average 1.9 (SD1.0) different anti-TNF'́s before switching to SEC. SEC was applied at the start of the treatment with 150 mg per dose (n=13, 76.5%) and 300 mg per dose (n=4, 23.5%). The dose of 150 mg was increased in 11 patients (85% of 13) after baseline. The mean follow-up of patients was 18.2 months (SD 7.2) accounting to 25.8 years under exposure to SEC. The jspADA (mean change of -1.3; p<0.001; 95%CI: -1.9 to -0.7) and JADAS10 (mean change of -2.4; p=0.021; 95%CI: -4.5 to -0.4) signi cantly improved between baseline and the 24-month follow-up. There was no serious adverse event observed. CONCLUSIONS: In our anti-TNF non-responder patients SEC showed good effectiveness. The 150 mg dose seems to be insufficient in anti-TNF non-responder patients and most patients had to be escalated to the 300 mg/dose.