Rationale, design, and methods of a non-interventional study to establish safety, effectiveness, quality of life, cognition, health-related and work capacity data on Alemtuzumab in multiple sclerosis patients in Germany (TREAT-MS)

Ziemssen et al. BMC Neurology (2016) 16:109 DOI 10.1186/s12883-016-0629-9 STUDY PROTOCOL Open Access Rationale, design, and methods of a noninterventional study to establish safety, effectiveness, quality of life, cognition, health-related and work capacity data on Alemtuzumab in multiple sclerosis patients in Germany (TREAT-MS) Tjalf Ziemssen1* , Ulrich Engelmann 2, Sigbert Jahn2, Alexandra Leptich3, Raimar Kern1, Lina Hassoun1 and Katja Thomas1 Abstract Background: Alemtuzumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody directed against the cell surface glycoprotein CD52, is licensed in Europe since October 2013 as treatment for adult patients with active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). In three randomized, rater-blinded active comparator clinical trials studies, alemtuzumab administered in two annual courses, had superior efficacy as compared to subcutaneous interferon beta-1a, and durable efficacy over 5 years in an extension study with a manageable safety profile in RRMS patients. Data on the utilization and the outcomes of alemtuzumab under clinical practice conditions are limited. Methods: Here we describe the rationale, design and methods of the TREAT-MS study (non-interventional long-Term study foR obsErvAtion of Treatment with alemtuzumab in active relapsing-remitting MS). Discussion: TREAT-MS is a prospective, multicenter, non-interventional, long-term study to collect data on safety, effectiveness, quality of life, cognition and other aspects from 3200 RRMS patients treated with alemtuzumab under the conditions of real-world clinical practice in Germany. Trial registration: As non-interventional trial in Germany. Keywords: Alemtuzumab, Non-interventional trial, Risk-management plan, MSDS3D, Real worl data, Multiple sclerosis Background Multiple sclerosis (MS) is generally considered a primarily T-cell mediated autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (CNS). To date, no cures exist for MS – the disease will progress to a worse stadium with higher disability sooner or later. Only disease course-modifying therapies (DMTs) are available for patients [1]. Treatments for the mild and moderate relapsing remitting MS (RRMS) courses * Correspondence: 1 Center of Clinical Neuroscience, Carl Gustav Carus University Hospital, Dresden, Germany Full list of author information is available at the end of the article are interferons-β and glatiramer acetate, DMTs which have been used since 20 years [2, 3]. On average, these injectable drugs cut the annual relapses by a third, and they are effective with side effects like flu like symptoms or injection site reactions [3, 4]. In 2013, teriflunomide [5] and in 2014, dimethylfumarate [6] have been introduced as oral agents for RRMS treatment. Given that first-line therapies might fail to adequately control disease activity in some patients, it has been recommended to switch these patients early to a therapy of higher efficacy more rigorously [7, 8]. Among treatments for (highly) active RRMS offering higher effectivity but also © 2016 The Author(s). Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Ziemssen et al. BMC Neurology (2016) 16:109 accompanied by significant side effects are DMTs such as fingolimod and natalizumab [9]. Fingolimod reduces the amount of lymphocytes that exit the lymph node by binding to sphingosine-1-phosphate receptors on the cell surface. While annual relapse rates (ARRs) are reduced by more than half [10], cardiac side effects and macular edemas are among the side effects [11]. Natalizumab, a humanized monoclonal anti-α4-integrin antibody, prevents lymphocytes’ crossing the blood-brain barrier [12]. It was shown that it can reduce ARRs by 68 %; however, an especially dangerous adverse effect of natalizumab is progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a brain infection by the John Cunningham (JC) virus [13]. For this complication, a lethality of 20 % in MS patients treated with natalizumab has been reported [14]. Alemtuzumab Alemtuzumab (Lemtrada®, marketed by Genzyme) has been approved in Europe 2013 and is marketed as a treatment for RRMS with active disease defined by clinical or imaging features [15]. In the USA, the drug has been approved in November 2014 for RRMS and PRMS treatment, but only for patients who did not have a satisfying response to two or more drugs (i.e. for second-line therapy). Alemtuzumab is a humanized monoclonoal antibody against the lymphocyte surface protein CD52 [16]. CD52 covers about 5 % of the entire surface of lymphocytes; apart from them, it occurs on cells as diverse as macrophages and endothelial cells [17]. After binding of alemtuzumab to CD52, lymphocytes are destroyed either by complementinduced or antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity [16, 18, 19]. As a consequence it is assumed that B- and Tcell repopulation takes place [20] by which – compared with the pre-treatment stage – the proportions of lymphocyte subgroups are shifted; the numbers of regulatory T cells and memory B- and T-cells are increased, and cell populations of innate immunity are also affected [21]. Overall, alemtuzumab appears to re-organize the immune repertoire, which manifests in the special kinetics of immune cell population, the increased production of antiinflammatory cytokines, and last but not least the very long duration of action [18, 22]. Three randomized, rater-blinded clinical trials about the effectiveness of alemtuzumab in MS treatment, using an effective comparator drug, have been performed, CAMMS223 [23], CARE-MS I [24], and CARE-MS II [25]. Administering 12 mg alemtuzumab per day, CAMMS223 and CARE-MS I showed a 69 and 55 % higher reduction of relapses than interferon-β 1a (IFNB-1a). Long-term effectivity of alemtuzumab was also superior compared with IFNB-1a: CAREMS II showed a reduction of the sustained accumulation of disability (SAD) within 6 months of 42 % and a reduction of relapses per year of 49 %. SAD reduction in a 5-year perspective was 69 %, and reduction of relapses 66 % in this Page 2 of 11 long-term outlook [26]. In sum, alemtuzumab drastically slowed down progression of MS. Important adverse effects elicited by alemtuzumab are secondary autoimmune reactions, in particular (for unknown reasons) reactions targeting the thyroid gland [27, 28]. In the studies, 26, 18 and 16 %, respectively, of patients were diagnosed with thyroid autoimmune disease (AID) [15]. Furthermore, a few cases of Goodpasture (...truncated)