Purpose: Intravenous IgG (IVIG) treatment wear-off is commonly experienced by patients, who report increased susceptibility to infection, and decreased quality of life towards the end of their 3- or 4-week dosing cycle, when serum IgG levels approach their trough. We quantified IVIG wear-off in terms of treatment efficacy and patient well-being.
Methods: Data were collected from patients enrolled in three Phase III trials of Sandoglobulin NF Liquid or Privigen, treated every 3- or 4- weeks. Pooled analyses of raw patient data compared the rate of infection and other clinical outcomes during the course of the dosing cycle. Subjective symptoms of wear-off were quantified by comparing patient-reported overall well-being scores.
Results: The probability of a first infection in the final week of the IVIG cycle was 1.26 (95% confidence intervals [CI]: 0.76-2.11; p = 0.3621) and 1.55 (95% CI: 1.04-2.32; p = 0.0314) times higher than in the first week, for patients on a 3-week cycle and 4-week dosing cycles, respectively. Wear-off, as manifested by a decrease in overall well-being, was experienced in 10% of all cycles and reported at least once by 61% of the patients on a 3-week cycle, and 43% of those on a 4-week cycle.
Conclusions: These findings confirm the existence of decreased efficacy (treatment wear-off) towards the end of a 3-4 week IVIG dosing cycle, and provide a quantifiable evaluation to a phenomenon typically reported anecdotally. For patients experiencing wear-off, increasing the IgG dose or shortening the dosing interval and/or a switch to SCIG may be beneficial.
Keywords: Immunoglobulin replacement therapy; end-dose effect; ivig; primary immunodeficiency; scig; wear-off; well-being.