BARCELONA – Inhibiting the interleukin-1 beta innate immunity pathway with canakinumab reduced recurrent cardiovascular events and lung cancer in the groundbreaking phase III CANTOS trial, Paul M. Ridker, MD, reported at the annual congress of the European Society of Cardiology.

“These data provide the first proof that inflammation inhibition in the absence of lipid lowering can improve atherogenic outcomes and potentially alter progression of some fatal cancers,” declared Dr. Ridker, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

“Just like we’ve learned that lower LDL is better, I think we’re now learning that lower inflammation is better,” he said.

CANTOS (Canakinumab Anti-inflammatory Thrombosis Outcome Study) was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 10,061 patients in 39 countries, all of whom had a previous MI and a chronically high level of systemic inflammation as reflected in a median baseline high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP) level of 4.1 mg/L. Ninety-one percent of participants were on statin therapy, with a median LDL cholesterol of 82 mg/dL when randomized to subcutaneous canakinumab at 50, 150, or 300 mg or to placebo once every 3 months.

Canakinumab is a fully human monoclonal antibody targeting IL-1B, a key player in systemic inflammation. The cytokine is activated by the nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome, a part of the innate immune system. Canakinumab is approved as Ilaris for treatment of several uncommon rheumatologic diseases, including cryopryin-associated periodic syndrome and systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

At a median follow-up of 3.7 years, the incidence of the primary composite efficacy endpoint of nonfatal MI, nonfatal stroke, or cardiovascular death was 4.5 events per 100 person-years in the control group, significantly higher than the 3.86 and 3.9 events per 100 person-years in patients on canakinumab at 150 and 300 mg, respectively.

Since event rates were virtually identical in the 150- and 300-mg study arms, Dr. Ridker combined those two patient groups in his analysis. They showed a 15% reduction in the risk of the primary efficacy endpoint, compared with placebo-treated controls, along with a 39% reduction from baseline in CRP. They also were 30% less likely to undergo percutaneous coronary intervention or coronary artery bypass graft during follow-up.

“That’s quite important, because that’s a progression-of-atherosclerosis endpoint and also obviously a cost and financial endpoint,” he observed.

A key finding in CANTOS was that patients with a reduction in CRP at or exceeding the median decrease just 3 months into the study – that is, after a single injection – had a 27% reduction in major vascular events during follow-up. Patients with a lesser reduction in CRP at that point did not experience a significant reduction in the primary endpoint, compared with placebo.

“The clinician in me would say we probably ought to give a single dose of the drug, see what happens, and if you get a large inflammation reduction we could perhaps consider treating that patient, but if you did not get a large reduction perhaps this is not a therapy for that patient. Why not avoid the toxicity in people who aren’t going to respond?” Dr. Ridker said.

Side effects related to canakinumab consisted of mild leukopenia and a small but statistically significant increase in fatal infections, which he called “not surprising.”

“It’s in the same range as one gets in treating rheumatoid arthritis with a biologic drug, which rheumatologists are very comfortable doing. You would imagine that if this does become a treatment, physicians will get much better at bringing patients in early when they have signs and symptoms of infection,” the cardiologist continued.

Patients on canakinumab showed significant reductions in incident rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and osteoarthritis. The drug had no kidney or liver adverse events.

Cancer was a prespecified secondary outcome in CANTOS. The investigators saw the trial as an opportunity to test a longstanding hypothesis that inhibiting IL-1B would have a positive impact on lung cancer in particular.

“Smoking, exposure to diesel fuel, inhalation of asbestos or other silicates – these cause inflammation which activates the NLRP3 inflammasome, but in the pulmonary system rather than the arteries,” Dr. Ridker explained.

An entry requirement in CANTOS was that patients needed to be free of known cancer. During study follow-up, 129 patients were diagnosed with lung cancer. The risk was reduced in dose-dependent fashion with canakinumab: by 39% relative to placebo in the 150-mg group and by 67% in the 300-mg group. Lung cancer mortality was reduced by 77% in the canakinumab 300-mg group.

“I don’t think this is about oncogenesis per se. I think the tumors are already there, but they don’t progress because we’ve altered the tumor’s inflammatory microenvironment,” he continued.

Since CANTOS was first and foremost a study of atherosclerotic disease prevention, the cancer results need to be replicated on a high-priority basis. Dr. Ridker predicted that Novartis, which sponsored CANTOS, will quickly mount a clinical trial examining canakinumab’s potential as an adjunctive treatment to either chemotherapy or radiation following resection of lung cancer.

He stressed that CANTOS is only the beginning stanza in what will be an entirely new approach to preventive cardiology. Numerous other inflammatory pathways also might serve as targets.

“I think this is going to open up all kinds of approaches using a variety of agents that have really been in the rheumatology and immunology world,” the cardiologist predicted.

For example, he is principal investigator in the ongoing National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute–sponsored Cardiovascular Inflammation Reduction Trial (CIRT), a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of low-dose methotrexate for prevention of cardiovascular events in a planned 7,000 patients with type 2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome who’ve had an MI or have multivessel CAD. Results are probably 4-6 years off.

“Right now, we know canakinumab works. If methotrexate were to work, then we’d have a generic, inexpensive approach as well,” Dr. Ridker noted.

Novartis officials indicated that, on the basis of the positive CANTOS results, the company plans to file for an expanded indication for canakinumab for cardiovascular prevention. The company also is gearing up for studies of the drug in oncology.

Simultaneous with Dr. Ridker’s presentation in Barcelona, both the atherosclerotic disease findings (N Engl J Med. 2017 Aug 27. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1707914) and the cancer findings (Lancet. 2017 Aug 27. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32247-X) were published.

He reported serving as a consultant to Novartis.

bjancin@frontlinemedcom.com

CANTOS sings of novel strategy for cardiovascular, cancer prevention