NCT05585671

Brief Summary

Systemic lupus erythematosus is a chronic autoimmune disease, which can involve multiple systems and largely impair patients' health. Kidney is the one of the most commonly affected organs. It was reported that more than about 70% SLE patients developed lupus nephritis, which was highly associated with the long-term prognosis1,2. It will be a great advantage if the high-risk groups could be predicated and prevented with pre-treatment, the renal prognosis and survival would be promisingly improved. The incidence of lupus nephritis within past 10 years in new-onset SLE patients was recorded in our retrospective study, which was highest in their first-year, about 17%, and about 5% per year in the following years3. The raising of risk prediction models and the recognition of high-risk patients are quite important. The prediction model depends on the collection of patient phenotypes, which are scattered in various forms and very cumbersome. In our previous study, a total of 14,439 SLE patients were collected from the rheumatology and immunology departments of 13 Chinese tertiary hospitals in this study, including 13 062 females (90.46%), with an average age of 33.4 years, and the time span of EMR (Electronic Medical Records) was from October 28, 2001 to March 31, 2017. It includes basic information about patients, physical examination, inspection and diagnostic information, etc. We designed a hybrid NLP system combined NLP technical and expert knowledge at the same time, which was named as Deep Phenotyping System (DPS), to extract all the phenotypic information recorded in EMR. The DPS efficiently processed EMR data, and its accuracy, precision, and recall were each greater than 93%. It extracted 73 794 entities from 14,439 SLE cases, each with time attributes, and produced 18,785,000,640 entities. Thus, a LN prediction model was raised, which the likelihood of lupus patients without nephritis will develop lupus nephritis within half and one year can be predicted.) More than 35 000 phenotypes were used in this model and it was verified with independent samples. The best accuracy (ACC) and area under the curve (AUC) predicting the 1-year and 2-year risk of developing lupus nephritis can be achieved 0.88 and 0.86 respectively. The comprehensive SLE phenotype database constructed by NLP greatly improves the research efficiency of lupus clinical phenotype. We first proposed a predictive model of lupus nephritis, which is high applicability and efficiency. The experimental results of good close and open testing fully demonstrate the authenticity and practicality of this database. The research process and method based on real world data are also applicable to predict other important complications of lupus3. Till now, there were no studies investigating secondary prevention tools of lupus nephritis. However, as we all known, disease flare is a high-risk factor of cruel organ damage, and our previous data showed that lupus nephritis was one of the important flare patterns4. Two phase III, randomized, placebo-controlled studies, BLISS-52 and BLISS-76 showed that belimumab, the only FDA-approved biologic in SLE, targeting B Lymphocyte Stimulator, can reduce disease flares compared to standard-of-care (SOC) therapy5,6. A propensity-score matching study further proved that belimumab add on reduces organ damage progression as measured by SDI7. A pooled post-hoc analysis of the BLISS trials took a deeper look at renal outcome, and suggest that belimumab may offer renal benefit in patients with SLE, indicated by less renal flares in belimumab group, that is 1.1% versus 3.0 in the placebo8. We hypothesized and tried to analyze that whether belimumab could act as a secondary prevention tool for SLE patients at high-risk.

Trial Health

35
At Risk

Trial Health Score

Automated assessment based on enrollment pace, timeline, and geographic reach

Trial has exceeded expected completion date
Enrollment
48

participants targeted

Target at P25-P50 for all trials

Timeline
Completed

Started Jun 2023

Typical duration for all trials

Status
not yet recruiting

Health score is calculated from publicly available data and should be used for screening purposes only.

Trial Relationships

Click on a node to explore related trials.

Study Timeline

Key milestones and dates

First Submitted

Initial submission to the registry

October 14, 2022

Completed
5 days until next milestone

First Posted

Study publicly available on registry

October 19, 2022

Completed
8 months until next milestone

Study Start

First participant enrolled

June 1, 2023

Completed
Same day until next milestone

Primary Completion

Last participant's last visit for primary outcome

June 1, 2023

Completed
3 years until next milestone

Study Completion

Last participant's last visit for all outcomes

June 1, 2026

Completed
Last Updated

October 19, 2022

Status Verified

October 1, 2022

Enrollment Period

Same day

First QC Date

October 14, 2022

Last Update Submit

October 14, 2022

Conditions

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

  • The percentage of patients who develop lupus nephritis within 24 months

    The primary objective was to see whether belimumab could reduce the 24-month risk of developing lupus nephritis. Definition of lupus nephritis: * Kidney biopsy confirmed; or * Active urinary sediment defined as any one of the following: A. \>5 RBC/hpf in the absence of menses and infection; B. \>5 White blood cell per high powered field (WBC/hpf) in the absence of infection; or Cellular casts limited to RBC or WBC casts. C. 24-hour urine protein \> 0.5g

    during 24 months

Interventions

Lupus patients without previous involvement of kidney are enrolled, and receive 2-year of 10mg/kg belimumab intravenously on the background of standard of care (SOC). During follow-up, we observe whether these patients will develop new-onset lupus nephritis.

Eligibility Criteria

Age18 Years - 80 Years
Sexall
Healthy VolunteersNo
Age GroupsAdult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)
Sampling MethodProbability Sample
Study Population

Based on previous BLISS trials, belimumab may reduce the development or flare of lupus nephritis by over 50%8. A sample size of 48 patients per group would provide the trial with 90% power at a two-sided alpha error of 0.05 to detect an effect on reducing development of lupus nephritis in high-risk SLE patients from 50% to 25% receiving belimumab within 24 months. A model of normal approximation to one sample proportion was applied. An estimated 20% withdraw or lost-to-follow up was also calculated, thus yielding the final estimated simple size of 48 patients in each group. Historical controls were selected by propensity-score match in our SLE database with the balance of baseline prednisone, antimalarial, immunosuppressive agents and SLEDAI. Belimumab: historical controls = 1:1

You may qualify if:

  • Aged ≥ 18 years old;
  • Meet the 1997 revised American College of Rheumatology criteria for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus;
  • year risk of developing new-onset lupus nephritis higher than 50% (50%\~100%) based on our AI-constructed prediction model.
  • Patients received a stable SOC regimen with fixed doses of prednisone (0-40mg/day), and/or hydroxychloroquine, and/or immunosuppressive agents (azathioprine, mycophenolate, methotrexate, ciclosporin, tacrolimus, leflunomide) for at least 30 days before the study.
  • Be willing to join the trial and sign the written informed consent.
  • Contraception is required during the study.

You may not qualify if:

  • \-- Patients with previous kidney involvement were excluded;
  • Definition of previous kidney involvement:
  • Kidney biopsy confirmed; or
  • Active urinary sediment defined as any one of the following:
  • A. \>5 RBC/hpf in the absence of menses and infection; B. \>5 White blood cell per high powered field (WBC/hpf) in the absence of infection; or Cellular casts limited to RBC or WBC casts.
  • C. 24-hour urine protein \> 0.5g
  • Severe active lupus such as neuropsychiatric lupus or cardiac involvement were excluded from the trial;
  • Pregnancy or lactation;
  • Previous treatment with any B-lymphocyte-targeted drug (including rituximab), intravenous cyclophosphamide within 6 months of enrolment, and intravenous Ig or prednisone (\>100 mg/day) within 3 months.
  • Hepatic (ALT or AST \> 2 times upper normal limits) or renal dysfunction (creatinine clearance rate \< 60 ml/min).
  • Have a history of a primary immunodeficiency
  • Have a significant IgG deficiency (IgG level \< 400 mg/dL)
  • Have an IgA deficiency (IgA level \< 10 mg/dL)
  • Infection history:
  • Currently on any suppressive therapy for a chronic infection (such as tuberculosis, pneumocystis, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex virus, herpes zoster and atypical mycobacteria)
  • +18 more criteria

Contact the study team to confirm eligibility.

Sponsors & Collaborators

MeSH Terms

Interventions

belimumab

Study Design

Study Type
observational
Observational Model
COHORT
Time Perspective
PROSPECTIVE
Sponsor Type
OTHER
Responsible Party
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
PI Title
Professor

Study Record Dates

First Submitted

October 14, 2022

First Posted

October 19, 2022

Study Start

June 1, 2023

Primary Completion

June 1, 2023

Study Completion

June 1, 2026

Last Updated

October 19, 2022

Record last verified: 2022-10