The main purpose of this prospective, multicenter, open-label phase II study, was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of pasireotide alone or in combination with cabergoline in patients with Cushing's disease.
This was an open-label, multi-center, international, non-comparative study with adult patients with confirmed diagnosis of Cushing's disease. Given the fact that CD patients may need a multimodality treatment approach, the trial design aimed to mimic CD treatment by using a medical stepwise approach. Therefore, the whole patient population started treatment with Pasireotide and only in patients within this population who did not achieve biochemical control, cabergoline was added. The whole patient population had never received pasireotide or had received it in the past (reasons of discontinuation not related to safety). Core Phase * Pasireotide naïve patients started pasireotide monotherapy at the dose of 0.6 mg s.c. bid. If at the end of the 8 week treatment period, the biochemical control was not achieved and the 0.6mg bid dose was well tolerated, the pasireotide dose was increased to 0.9mg bid. If the 0.9mg bid dose of pasireotide did not lead to biochemical control, cabergoline was added with a starting dose of 0.5mg qd. If the combination dose of 0.9mg bid of pasireotide plus 0.5mg qd cabergolinedid not achieve biochemical control, the cabergoline dose will be increased to 1.0mg qd. * Patients who were currently being treated with maximal tolerated doses of pasireotide monotherapy for at least 8 weeks at screening without achieving normal mUFC, entered the study with a combination therapy starting with cabergoline 0.5mg qd. Extension Phase • After 35 weeks of treatment in core phase, patients had the option to continue study treatment if pasireotide was not yet approved for commercial use and/or reimbursed - if country reimbursement was applicable - in each respective country, or until 31st December 2017, or once an applicable roll over protocol became available, or whichever occurred first. Novartis had a local transition plan in order to ensure that all trial patients had access to the study medication without any delay in their treatment
The trial consisted of Pasireotide-untreated patients who started pasireotide 0.6mg twice a day for 8 weeks. If biochemical control was not achieved by the end of the 8 weeks, and the 0.6mg dose is well-tolerated, the dose was increased to 0.9mg twice a day for another 8 weeks. If biochemical control is not achieved, cabergoline was added and patients began combination treatment with cabergoline at the starting dose of 0.5mg once a day for 8 weeks. If biochemical control is still not achieved at the end of the third 8 week period, the dose of cabergoline was increased to 1.0mg once a day. Patients could also immediately start the combination treatment by adding cabergoline 0.5mg once a day at study entry to their current maximal tolerated dose of pasireotide. Patients continued with the combination treatment for 8 weeks. If biochemical control was not not achieved by the end of the 8 week period, the dose of cabergoline was increased to 1mg once a day.
Caba, Buenos Aires, Argentina