SEATTLE –
Dr. Bruce Cree
A decrease in neutrophils over 6 months in a cohort of fingolimod treatment–experienced patients “was a surprise, at least to me,” said study investigator Bruce Cree, MD, PhD, professor of neurology at UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco. Why levels of these innate immune cells decreased in patients who had been on the drug for years “remains to be understood,” Dr. Cree said at the annual meeting of the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers. “This is something that deserves further investigation ... to understand if that neutrophil count will continue to drop down over time or whether it ultimately plateaus.”
The decline in neutrophils in this cohort of patients continuously treated for at least 2 years was “only about 9%,” from an average of 3,698.56 cells per microliter at study baseline to 3,336.13 cells per microliter at 6 months.
Among fingolimod-naive patients who initiated treatment during the study, neutrophils decreased from 4,058.48 cells per microliter at baseline to 3,475.09 cells per microliter at 6 months, about 14%.
In the treatment-experienced patients, other immune cell subsets remained relatively stable over the 6-month period.
“If we are trying to understand the impact of fingolimod ultimately on propensity for development of opportunistic infection, of course we are focused almost exclusively on adaptive immunity,” Dr. Cree said. “But perhaps we are forgetting that innate immunity might be also extremely important for protecting ourselves against infection.”
The FLUENT study
Dr. Cree presented interim, 6-month data from the ongoing, open-label FLUENT study, which is a 12-month, prospective, multicenter, nonrandomized study to assess changes in the immune cell profiles of patients with relapsing MS who receive fingolimod. The study includes a cohort of treatment-experienced patients and a cohort of treatment-naive patients.
Fingolimod is a once-daily oral sphingosine 1–phosphate receptor modulator that prevents egress of lymphocytes from lymph nodes. Since its FDA approval in 2010, rare opportunistic infections, including progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), have been reported in patients taking fingolimod.
Investigators did not assess changes in innate and adaptive components of the immune system during fingolimod treatment in the pivotal clinical trials, and the relationship between anti-JCV antibody index and immune cell subsets during fingolimod treatment is not known. Immunologic profiling may help gauge patients’ treatment response and risk of infection.
The FLUENT study’s primary outcome is change from baseline to month 6 in peripheral blood cellular components of the innate and adaptive immune system. Secondary endpoints include change in the immune cell subtype profile at months 3 and 12; anti-JCV antibody status at months 3, 6, and 12; change in anti-JCV antibody index at months 3, 6, and 12; and clinical variables. In addition, the investigators plan to examine changes in serum neurofilament light chain (NfL) levels at months 3, 6, and 12.
FLUENT includes a cohort of fingolimod-naive patients and a cohort of patients who have received continuous, commercially available fingolimod 0.5 mg/day for at least 2 years and plan to continue the drug during the 1-year study. The interim analysis included data from 166 fingolimod-naive patients (median age, 41 years; 77.7% female) and 216 fingolimod-experienced patients (median age, 50 years; 73.1% female). About 70% of patients in the fingolimod-naive cohort had had a relapse in the past 2 years, compared with about 22% of patients in the treatment-experienced cohort. Investigators began enrolling patients in September 2017.