Characteristics of patients with moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis treated with vedolizumab: results from a Polish multicenter, prospective, observational real-life study (the POLONEZ study).
Halina Cichoz-LachAgata MichalakMaria Kopertowska-MajchrzakPiotr EderKamila Stawczyk-EderKatarzyna WaszakRenata Talar-WojnarowskaHubert ZatorskiAnna Solarska-PółchłopekJarosław ChmielnickiRafał FilipAnna PękalaMaria JaniakKrzysztof SkrobotEwa KasińskaMichał KroguleckiPiotr KrólikowskiMaria KłopockaAriel LiebertElżbieta PoniewierkaIzabela SmołaAnita GąsiorowskaAleksandra KaczkaJoanna WypychKrzysztof WojciechowskiSzymon DrygałaEdyta ZagórowiczPublished in: Therapeutic advances in gastroenterology (2021)
Characteristics of patients treated for ulcerative colitis with vedolizumab in Poland Treatment of moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis (UC) with the integrin antagonist vedolizumab became available within the Polish National Drug Program (NDP) in 2018. In this study, for the first time, we provide detailed demographic and clinical characteristics of 100 patients (median age 35 years, 51% female) treated with vedolizumab in Poland, of whom 55 were biologic-naïve and 45 biologic-exposed. The median duration of disease was 6 years. The disease duration was shorter in biologic-naïve than in biologic-exposed patients. Most patients were affected by extensive colitis (52%) or left-sided colitis (42%). Median disease activity was 10 according to the Total Mayo Score. Sixty-eight patients received concomitant systemic corticosteroids and 45 patients received immunomodulators. Our findings indicate that Polish patients receiving vedolizumab have a high disease activity and are treated relatively early after UC diagnosis. This might be due to the criteria for inclusion of a patient in the NDP.