Immunogenicity to infliximab is associated with HLA-DRB1

Dear Editor, We read with great interest the manuscript by Ungar and colleagues describing the temporal evolution of antibodies to infliximab (ATI) in patients with IBD treated with infliximab (IFX).1 By prospectively following 125 patients with IBD, they showed that ATI formation is a dynamic process. Clinically relevant ATI were typically formed within the first 12 months but transient ATI, which are of little clinical significance, can be formed at any time during treatment. They furthermore demonstrated that the evolution of ATI correlates with clinical loss of response and that concomitant immunomodulator use prolonged ATI-free survival, which is in line with previous reports. Nevertheless, patient-related factors possibly influencing ATI formation weren't considered and haven't been studied extensively. We hypothesised that ATI formation may be triggered by HLA-DRB1 alleles, as was shown for immunogenicity to interferon-β therapy in multiple sclerosis.2 We retrospectively analysed 192 patients with IBD:...
Source: Gut - Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tags: PostScript Source Type: research