Tag Archive for: Food and Drug Administration

Karun-Sharma-and-kids-MR-HIFU

FDA approves MR-HIFU system to treat osteoid osteoma

Karun-Sharma-and-kids-MR-HIFU

“This FDA approval encourages and further motivates our focused ultrasound program to continue to develop and expand clinical applications of MR-HIFU in the pediatric population,”  said Karun Sharma, M.D., Ph.D.

After garnering successful clinical trial results at Children’s National Hospital, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced the approval of Profound Medical’s Sonalleve MR-guided High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (MR-HIFU) system for the treatment of osteoid osteoma (OO) in the extremities. OO is a benign, but painful bone tumor that occurs most commonly in children and young adults. This marks the first focused ultrasound regulatory approval that will directly impact pediatric patients and it is the sixth indication to earn approval in the United States.

Nine patients were treated in a pilot trial designed to evaluate the safety and feasibility of MR-HIFU ablation treatment in patients with painful OO. The procedure was performed without any technical difficulties or serious adverse events in all nine patients, and resulted in complete pain relief with no further pain medication usage in eight out of nine patients.

“This FDA approval encourages and further motivates our focused ultrasound program to continue to develop and expand clinical applications of MR-HIFU in the pediatric population,” said Karun Sharma, M.D., Ph.D., director of Interventional Radiology and associate director of clinical translation at the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation (SZI) at Children’s National. “This completely non-invasive and radiation-free aspects of this therapy are especially relevant for growing children.”

Researchers at Children’s National have moved beyond OO are also evaluating MR-HIFU treatment for patients with relapsed and refractory bone and soft tissue tumors. “This is especially important as these patients don’t have any other good treatment options,” said Dr. Sharma. “For these tumors, we are using not only thermal ablation, but also other modes and biomechanisms of focused ultrasound such as mild hyperthermia to facilitate targeted, enhanced drug delivery and histotripsy (i.e., mechanical tissue fractionation) to enhance cancer immunotherapy. We also hope to move into MR-HIFU brain application in pediatrics.”

At Children’s National, a multidisciplinary team of physicians and scientists use MR-HIFU to focus an ultrasound beam into lesions to heat and destroy the tissue in that region, with no incisions at all. In 2015, Children’s National doctors became the first in the U.S. to use MR-HIFU to treat pediatric osteoid osteoma. The trial, led by Dr. Sharma, demonstrated early success in establishing the safety and feasibility of noninvasive MR-HIFU in children as an alternative to the current, more invasive approaches to treat these tumors. Since then, the Children’s National team has built an active clinical trials program and become a leader in translation of focused ultrasound for the treatment of relapsed pediatric solid tumors.

tiny stent illustration

Thinking small for newborns with critical congenital heart disease

tiny stent illustration

Illustration of a hybrid stage I palliation with bilateral bands on the lung vessels and a stent in the ductus arteriosus for patients with small left heart structures.

A new LinkedIn post from Kurt Newman, M.D., president and CEO of Children’s National Hospital, tells a story about the hospital’s cardiac surgeons and interventional cardiologists working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to bring a better-sized, less-invasive vascular stent to the U.S. for the first time. The stent holds open a newborn’s ductus arteriosus, a key blood vessel that keeps blood flowing to the body, until the baby is big and strong enough to undergo a serious open-heart procedure for repair of hypoplastic left heart syndrome.

He writes, “Why is this important? At less than 6 lbs., these patients have arteries that are thinner than a toothpick – less than 2mm in diameter. Currently, the stent used in these children is an FDA approved device for adult vascular procedures, adapted and used off-label in children. It is not always well suited for the smallest babies as it is too large for insertion through the artery and often too long as well. The extra length can create immediate and long-term complications including obstructing the vessel it is supposed to keep open.

“While I am proud of the talent and dedication of our Children’s National cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology teams, I tell this story to illustrate a larger point – innovation in children’s medical devices matters. What’s unfortunate is that development and commercialization of pediatric medical devices in the U.S. continues to lag significantly behind adults…We can and must do better.”

Read Dr. Newman’s full post on LinkedIn.

expired drugs

Fewer than half of California pharmacies provide correct drug disposal info

expired drugs

Fewer than half of California pharmacies provided correct prescription drug disposal details, a percentage that dropped if “secret shoppers” made their call on a weekend, according to a brief research report published online Dec. 31, 2019, in Annals of Internal Medicine.

The callers pretended to be well-meaning parents who were trying to safely dispose of unneeded antibiotics and opioid-based prescription painkillers after their child’s surgery. Fewer than half of the California pharmacies they called provided correct prescription drug disposal details, a percentage that dropped sharply if the “secret shoppers” made their call on a weekend, according to a brief research report published online Dec. 31, 2019, in Annals of Internal Medicine.

“The Food and Drug Administration advises consumers about how to safely dispose of unneeded medicines and, because pharmacists can play an integral role in this conversation, the American Pharmacists Association says prescription medication disposal should follow FDA guidelines,” says Rachel E. Selekman, M.D., MAS, a pediatric urologist at Children’s National Hospital and the study’s first author. “We found very few California pharmacies permitted take-back of unneeded medications. There was also a striking difference in the accuracy and completeness of drug disposal information depending on whether they answered the call on a weekday or a weekend. That suggests room for improvement,” Dr. Selekman says.

The multi-institutional research team, led by Primary Investigator and senior author Hillary L. Copp, M.D., MS, at University of California, San Francisco, identified licensed pharmacies located in urban and rural settings in California. That state that accounts for 10% of all U.S. pharmacies. They wrote a script that guided four male and two female “secret shoppers” to ask about what to do about leftover antibiotics (sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim tablets) and a liquid opioid-based painkiller (hydrocodone-acetaminophen). From late-February to late-April 2018, they called 898 pharmacies from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., asking about the correct way to dispose of these medicines.

According to the FDA, consumers should mix most unused medicines with an unappealing substance, like kitty litter, place it in a sealed container and toss the container in the trash.  Medicines that can be harmful to others, like opioids, should be flushed down the sink or toilet. Many pharmacies have programs or kiosks to handle unused prescription medicines.

Of the pharmacies surveyed in California:

  • 47% provided correct information about disposing of antibiotics
  • 29% provided correct information about how to dispose of both antibiotics and opioids
  • 19% provided correct information about how to dispose of opioids
  • 49% provided correct antibiotic disposal information and 20% provided correct opioid disposal information on weekday calls
  • 15% provided correct antibiotic disposal information and 7% provided correct opioid disposal information on weekend calls

Asked specifically about drug take-back programs, just 11% said their pharmacy had one that could be used to dispose of antibiotics or opioids.

“Unused prescription medications can be misused by others and can result in accidental childhood poisonings,” Dr. Selekman adds. “The bottom line is that we often talk about how to address the problem of too many unused medications lingering in homes. There are many reasons this is a problem, but part of the problem is nobody knows what to do if they have too many prescription medicines. Because of this research, we have discovered that pharmacies don’t uniformly provide accurate information to our patients. Patients, families and health care professionals who advise families should work together to help improve and expand safe disposal options for these powerful medications.”

In addition to Drs. Selekman and Copp, the research team includes co-authors Thomas W. Gaither, M.D., MAS, Zachary Kornberg, BA, and Aron Liaw, M.D., all of whom were at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, Division of Pediatric Urology at the time the study was performed.

Doctors-working-with-Digital-Tablet

New network will advance treatments for children

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Three leaders from Children’s National Health System are among the investigators of a new FDA-funded program created to launch a global clinical trials network. The initial $1 million grant from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) establishes a network among the Institute for Advanced Clinical Trials for Children (I-ACT for Children), the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI) (affiliated with Children’s National), PEDSnet, the James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence and the Critical Path Institute, to address the unmet medical needs of children by improving quality and efficiency in developing innovative pediatric drugs and devices.

Along with the fiscal 2017 funds, there is a potential for $1 million in funding each year for an additional four years to I-ACT for Children, contingent on annual appropriations and the availability of funding. I-ACT for Children is a new independent, nonprofit organization that works to improve the planning and completion of pediatric clinical trials. PEDSnet and the Anderson Center will serve as the network’s data and learning core, while the Critical Path Institute will serve as the regulatory science core and NCC-PDI will serve as the medical device core.

From Children’s National, the investigators include: Peter Kim, M.D., Ph.D., vice president of the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation; Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., executive director of the Sheikh Zayed Institute and NCC-PDI and Johannes van den Anker, M.D., Ph.D., division chief of Clinical Pharmacology and vice chair of Experimental Therapeutics.

“We are pleased that this grant addresses innovative reengineering of the pediatric device trials system,” says Eskandanian. “In contrast with drug trials, device trials are generally less optimally understood in academic medical centers and clinical sites.”

She explains that children have medical device needs that are considerably different from adults. Designing devices for children requires considerations such as growth and development, anatomical and physiological differences. Often, the lack of available devices for children forces clinicians to use an adult device off-label or to improvise. Off-label use may be the only option, but such use can bring risks of serious adverse events that could be avoided if there were more FDA–approved pediatric devices.

“Thanks to partnership with I-ACT we will be able to address the pressing need to improve clinical trials and post-market monitoring of pediatric devices,” says Eskandanian.

Leading the network as principal investigator is Edward Connor, M.D., president of I-ACT for Children and an emeritus professor of Pediatrics, Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine and Children’s National.

Work has been initiated to integrate network components and engage public and private shareholders. Next steps include selecting priority projects for implementation in 2018 and beyond, and scaling the network in North America and abroad.

Funding for this work was made possible, in part, by the Food and Drug Administration through grant 1 U18 FD 006297. Views expressed in written materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does any mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organization imply endorsement by the United States Government.

Children’s National Chief of Allergy and Immunology helps move gene therapy forward

Catherine Bollard

Catherine Bollard, M.D., MBChB, Chief of the Division of Allergy and Immunology, recently shared her expertise on an FDA panel that unanimously expressed its support for a pediatric cancer T-cell therapy called CTL019.

On July 12, 2017, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory committee unanimously expressed its support for CTL019 – a pediatric cancer T-cell therapy. If the FDA follows the advice from the 10-member Oncologic Drug Advisory Committee (ODAC) – which included Children’s National Health System’s Catherine Bollard, M.D., MBChB, Chief of the Division of Allergy and Immunology and Director of the Program for Cell Enhancement and Technologies for Immunotherapy – CTL019 will become the first gene therapy to hit the market.

“Many of these children with recurrent cancer are out of other options to treat their illness,” said Dr. Bollard. “We are encouraged by these findings and the potential for this therapy to improve outcomes and quality of life.”

CTL019 is a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, comprised of genetically modified T cells that target CD19, an antigen expressed on the surface of B cells. Also known as tisagenlecleucel, the therapy targets a single type of cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukemia and was created by Novartis.

In clinical trials, CTL019 showed unparalleled effectiveness. Of the 68 patients who received the drug, 52 responded almost immediately, and their cancer disappeared within the first three months. Seventy-five percent of those patients remained cancer-free six months after treatment. The therapy has one main side effect: an immune reaction called cytokine release syndrome, which can be deadly, with extended spiking fevers and other symptoms.

However, because of CTL019’s high efficacy, FDA scientists asked the ODAC panel to focus on the therapy’s safety and manufacturing challenges rather than whether or not it works.

Several committee members, including Dr. Bollard, expressed apprehension about the T-cell subpopulations’ heterogeneity, which could affect safety and efficacy. Another issue for consideration by the ODAC panel was the long-term side effects of CTL019 and the possibility that the T-cell modification could go awry, causing secondary cancers in the future.

Despite these concerns, the committee concluded that the strong efficacy data and the near-term benefits of CAR-T therapy more than tipped the scales in favor of the therapy. ODAC members were also pleased with Novartis’ plan to minimize risk, which includes limiting CTL019 distribution to selected centers with CAR T-cell therapy experience, and extensive, long-term post-marketing surveillance plans.

The FDA is not required to follow the ODAC panel’s advice when making its final decision, but it often does so. A final decision by the FDA is anticipated by late September.

Read more about the story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Medpage Today and Healio.com.