BARCELONA – The results of the Canakinumab Anti-Inflammatory Thrombosis Outcomes Study (CANTOS) mark the validation of many years of research on inflammation for Peter Libby, MD, Mallinckrodt Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston.
The CANTOS investigator said that, although some trials, most notably JUPITER, have linked reduced markers of inflammation with reduced cardiovascular events, none have been able to separate the effects of lowering LDL cholesterol from those of lowering the inflammatory marker interleukin-1B.
But using the monoclonal antibody canakinumab to target only interleukin-1B in CANTOS reduced the composite endpoint of nonfatal MI, nonfatal stroke, or cardiovascular death by 15% at the highest dosage tested, compared with placebo, while lowering high-sensitivity C-reactive protein by 39 percentage points.
Dr. Libby has been studying interleukin-1B since the 1980s. “Now, today, for the first time, in a rigorous trial, we can show that an anti-inflammatory agent that is neutral for lipids (that doesn’t lower LDL) can provide a benefit for our patients, and that’s a real step forward,” Dr. Libby said in a video interview at the annual congress of the European Society of Cardiology.
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Importantly, a dividend of the investigation was that “we found a decrease in fatal cancers, particularly lung cancer. So this again opens the door toward a whole new therapeutic window in patients not just in the cardiovascular space, but also in oncology. So it’s a doubly exciting day for us.”
CANTOS was presented at the meeting by Paul Ridker, MD, also of Harvard Medical School; the results were also published online (N Engl J Med. 2017 Aug 27. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1707914).