Jessica Allegretti, MD, MPH: An Update on the Quasar Study at DDW 2023

Guselkumab results in a clinically meaningful improvements demonstrated across symptomatic and histo-endoscopic outcome measures for patients with ulcerative colitis compared to placebo.

In the latest iteration of data from the ongoing Quasar study, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, multicenter study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of guselkumab, investigators found the treatment resulted in a greater proportion of patients who achieved clinical remission at week 12, compared to placebo.

The interleukin-23 (IL-23), p19 subunit antagonist was used in the study as an induction therapy and also resulted in a greater proportion of patients who achieved symptomatic remission, clinical response, endoscopic improvement, and histo-endoscopic mucosal improvement at week 12 compared to placebo, as well as symptomatic remission at week 4.

The data was presented at the 2023 Digestive Disease Week (DDW) in Chicago as a late-breaking abstract.

In an interview with HCPLive®, Jessica Allegretti, MD, MPH, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, explained how the data continues to point to guselkumab being a safe and effective treatment for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

“If you look at the patient population studied in this induction study, this was sick patient population. More than half of patients randomized in each treatment group had a Mayo endoscopic score of at least 3, about 11-13% of patients had been exposed to 3 or more advanced therapies. This is a sick population and we are still seeing very positive results regard to treatment compared to placebo.”