A Multicenter Phase 2 Single-arm Proof-of-concept Trial to Assess the Efficacy and Safety of Ustekinumab in Association With Prednisone for the Treatment of Non-infectious Severe Uveitis (NISU)

Uveitis is characterized by inflammation of the uvea, which is the middle portion of the eye. The greatest challenge for the treatment of uveitis is patients who have inflammation involving the posterior segment, either primarily in the vitreous (intermediate uveitis), the choroid or retina (posterior uveitis), or involving the entire eye (panuveitis). The term uveitis denotes a heterogeneous collection of diseases including infections, systemic immune-mediated diseases like sarcoidosis, and immune-mediated syndromes confined to the eye like sympathetic ophthalmia. Despite the progress in recent decades, uveitis and the related intraocular inflammation are comparable to diabetes or macular degeneration as a cause of lost quality-adjusted life years due to visual morbidity, and as such are a significant public health problem. The Standardization of Uveitis Nomenclature Working Group Guidelines recommend the use of corticosteroids as the first-line therapy for patients with active uveitis. However, long-term corticosteroid treatment can cause serious systemic and ocular side effects, such as hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, cataract, and glaucoma that limit its use in the treatment of uveitis. Alternatively, immunomodulatory therapy (IMT) drugs are given as steroid-sparing agents and have shown good clinical results for both systemic diseases and ocular inflammatory diseases. Given the side effects of chronic corticosteroid therapy and better understanding of the mechanisms of autoimmune-mediated uveitis, the aim of the treatment for patients with noninfectious uveitis is steroid-free remission with IMT. While uveitis is a heterogeneous disease with polygenic and environmental factors, most forms of immune-mediated uveitis are thought to be due to an imbalance between regulatory mechanisms that inhibit the immune system and inflammatory mechanisms, which have evolved to rid the body of infectious organisms, but which can result in immune-mediated, often chronic disease if they are activated outside the context of the immediate infection. The pathophysiology of non-infectious uveitis involves the rupture of peripheral tolerance, resulting in auto-aggressive Th1 or Th17 lymphocytes reaching the eye. L-12 and IL-23 are two key cytokines involved in Th1 and Th17 polarization in uveitis, respectively. Furthermore, these two cytokines share a common subunit (p40). Ustekinumab, a humanized anti-p40 monoclonal antibody, is able to target both IL-12 and IL-23 pathways, thus disrupting Th1 and Th17 immune responses. Decreasing the dose as well as the duration of treatment with GC is of particular importance in uveitis, and ustekinumab, which selectively inhibits Th1 and Th17 pathways in the inflammatory cascade, could provide a ideal additional therapy for non-infectious severe uveitis (NISU) to reach this objective. Therefore, in the present study, we propose to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ustekinumab for the treatment of NISU.