The NIH has launched a clinical trial to examine antibody responses to a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose in patients with autoimmune disease who failed to respond to the initial vaccine regimen.
According to a press release issued by the NIH, the phase 2 trial will also study whether pausing immunosuppressive therapy for autoimmune disease improves the antibody response to an extra COVID-19 vaccine dose in this population.
“The NIH has launched an important study examining the effect of boosting and hold immunosuppressive drugs including mycophenolate mofetil or mycophenolic acid, methotrexate, or B cell depleting drugs to assess the impact on antibody response in a randomized designed trial,” Leonard Calabrese, DO, professor of medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, at Case Western Reserve University, and RJ Fasenmyer chair of clinical immunology at the Cleveland Clinic, told Healio Rheumatology.
“Unfortunately, this is a real-time issue for patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs), including many rheumatic disorders, dermatologic disorders, multiple sclerosis and other neuro-immunologic diseases, as well as inflammatory bowel disease among others,” he added.