UC San Diego

Background

Crizanlizumab was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration agency in 2019 for decreasing vaso-occlusive events (VOEs) in sickle cell disease (SCD). Data regarding the use of crizanlizumab in the real-world setting are limited. Our goal was to identify patterns of crizanlizumab prescriptions in our SCD program and evaluate the benefits and identify barriers to its use in our SCD clinic.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective analysis of patients who received crizanlizumab at our institution between July 2020 and January 2022. We compared acute care usage patterns before and after initiation of crizanlizumab, adherence to treatment, discontinuation and reasons for discontinuation. High utilizers of hospital-based services were defined as those with more than one visit to the emergency department (ED) per month or more than three visits to the day infusion program per month.

Results

Fifteen patients received at least one dose of crizanlizumab 5 mg/kg of actual body weight during the study period. The average number of acute care visits decreased following crizanlizumab initiation but was not statistically significant (20 visits vs. 10 visits, P = 0.07). Among high users of hospital-based services, the average number of acute care visits decreased after initiation of crizanlizumab (40 vs. 16, P = 0.005). Only five patients included in this study remained on crizanlizumab 6 months after initiation.

Conclusion

Our study suggests that crizanlizumab use may be helpful in decreasing acute care visits in SCD, particularly among high utilizers of hospital-based acute care services. However, the discontinuation rate in our cohort was extremely high, and further evaluation of efficacy and causes contributing to discontinuation in larger cohorts is warranted.