Millie D. Long, MD: Expanding the Safety Data on Ustekinumab

While the majority of data that has come out about the safety on ustekinumab for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

But there is always a need for more and more safety data.

In an interview with HCPLive®, Millie D. Long, MD, MPH, FACG, University of North Carolina, said despite some really positive data on the treatment, investigators should always be looking at long-term safety data.

“I’m always a proponent of further safety data. The longer we follow patients on this therapy the more we know,” Long said. “That way we can ensure there is no evidence of rare outcomes.”

In new data presented during 2022 Digestive Disease Week Annual Meeting in San Diego, a team, led by Long, found little evidence of malignancies following ustekinumab treatment for patients with ulcerative colitis and psoriatic arthritis.

In the study, the investigators followed 6710 patients treated with ustekinumab for up to 5 years, involving 13,807 years of follow-up and found an incidence rate of patients with at least 1 malignancies per 100 patient-years for all malignancies was 1.00 (95% CI, 0.84-1.118), compared to 0.73 for the placebo group.

Long also talked about what goes into advising patients on treatments should they have a reaction to ustekinumab. Largely, she said this is based on the individual circumstances of the patients.