Treatment of Beta-thalassemia Patients With Rapamycin (Sirolimus): From Pre-clinical Research to a Clinical Trial - Trattamento di Pazienti Con Beta-talassemia Con Rapamicina (Sirolimus): Dalla Ricerca Pre-clinica ad Uno Studio Clinico
In β-thalassaemia and Sickle Cell Disease (SCD), a significant production of fetal haemoglobin (HbF) may reduce the severity of clinical course and reactivation of γ-globin gene expression in adulthood. HbF induction is one of the best strategies to ameliorate the characteristic symptoms of these diseases. Hydroxyurea (HU) is the only medication, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, inducing HbF. However, treatments with HU induce sufficient HbF levels in only half of the patients, and side effects including leukopenia and neutropenia are frequently reported. Therefore, novel therapeutic inducers must be identified to develop a personalized treatment in β-thalassaemia and sickle cell anaemia. The availability of new treatments depends on drugs already approved for other indications, and on pharmacokinetics and pharmacovigilance already assessed. Rapamycin (as Sirolimus) is an immunosuppressant agent, approved by the FDA for acute rejection prevention in renal transplant recipients. The ability of this drug to induce γ-globin gene expression in erythroleukemia cell line and erythroid precursors cells (ErPCs) in ß-thalassaemia patients is already known. A clinical investigation on the effects of sirolimus in ß-Thalassaemia aims to evaluate several parameters related to red blood cell status and HbF levels and is a first step for the full clinical development in this new indication.
• Patients over 18 years of age;
• Patients able to understand the informed consent and to sign it before any study procedure;
• Patients with β0/β0 and β+/β0 thalassaemia genotype;
• Documented diagnosis of major or intermediate thalassemia transfusion-dependent (number of transfusions not less than 8 over the past 12 months before selection);
• On regular transfusion since at least 6 years;
• Splenectomy performed at least 60 days before selection or spleen largest dimensions \< 20 cm as detected by abdominal echography;
• Female participants who are surgically sterilised/hysterectomised or post-menopausal for longer than 2 years or female participants of childbearing potential using and/or willing to continue using a medically reliable method of contraception for the entire study duration, such as oral, injectable, or implantable contraceptives, or intrauterine contraceptive devices, or using any other method considered sufficiently reliable by the investigator in individual cases. Patients must be counselled concerning measures to be used to prevent pregnancy and potential toxicities prior to the first dose of sirolimus;
• Patient willing to follow all the study requirements and perform all the study visits and to cooperate with the investigator;
• Patient followed by the same clinical site since at least 6 months.
⁃ Note that patients will be treated with oral sirolimus only in the case their Erythroid Precursor Cells (ErPCs) are responsive to the in vitro treatment with sirolimus according to laboratory-specific definition (≥ 20% increase of HbF in comparison with samples not treated with sirolimus);