Combination Therapy Does Not Improve Rate of Clinical or Endoscopic Remission in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Treated With Vedolizumab or Ustekinumab

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Patients with Crohn's disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC) often receive combination therapy with an immunomodulator and tumor necrosis factor antagonists, especially infliximab. However, the benefits of combination therapy with vedolizumab and ustekinumab are unclear. METHODS: We performed a retrospective study of patients with CD or UC initiating vedolizumab or ustekinumab therapy at Massachusetts General Hospital (USA), Alberta Health Sciences (Canada), or Nancy University Hospital (France) with at least 1 year of follow up. The primary outcome was clinical remission or response at week 14, based on the Harvey Bradshaw index for CD or simple clinical colitis index or partial Mayo score for UC. We separately examined week 30 and week 54 clinical outcomes, endoscopic response, and durability of therapy using multivariable regression models and adjusting for relevant confounders. RESULTS: Our study included 549 patients (263 with UC, 286 with CD) receiving maintenance therapy with vedolizumab and 363 patients (4 with UC, 359 with CD) receiving maintenance therapy with ustekinumab with 1 year of follow up. The mean disease duration was 13-15 years. One hundred thirty-one patients receiving vedolizumab (23.9%; 78 receiving thiopurine, 53 receiving methotrexate) and 120 patients receiving ustekinumab (33.1%, 57 receiving thiopurine, 63 receiving methotrexate) were receiving combination therapy. For vedolizumab, there was no difference in clinical response or remission with combination therapy vs monotherapy at week 14 (68.2% vs 74.1%; P = .22), week 30 (74.3% vs 75.6%; P = .78) or week 54 (78.3% vs 72.9%, P = .33). For ustekinumab, there was no difference in clinical response or remission with combination therapy vs monotherapy at week 14 (54.6% vs 65.8%; P = .08), week 30 (71.6% vs 77.4%; P = .33) or week 54 (62.1% vs 67.0%; P = .52). There were similar proportions of patients remaining on treatment or with endoscopic response at 1 year among patients receiving combination or monotherapy with vedolizumab or ustekinumab. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with CD or UC initiating ustekinumab or vedolizumab therapy, combination therapy with immunomodulators did not increase rates of clinical remission or response, endoscopic remission, or persistence of therapy at 1 year.