Anne-Emmanuelle Fargeton

Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia is a rare but ubiquitous genetic disease. Epistaxis is the most frequent and life-threatening manifestation and tacrolimus, an immunosuppressive agent, appears to be an interesting new treatment option because of its anti-angiogenic properties. Our objective was to evaluate, six weeks after the end of the treatment, the efficacy on the duration of nosebleeds of tacrolimus nasal ointment, administered for six weeks to patients with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia complicated by nosebleeds, and we performed a prospective, multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blinded, ratio 1:1 phase II study. Patients were recruited from three French Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT) centers between May 2017 and August 2018, with a six-week follow-up, and we included people aged over 18 years, diagnosed with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia and epistaxis (total duration > 30 min/6 weeks prior to inclusion). Tacrolimus ointment 0.1% was self-administered by the patients twice daily. About 0.1 g of product was to be administered in each nostril with a cotton swab. A total of 50 patients was randomized and treated. Mean epistaxis duration before and after treatment in the tacrolimus group were 324.64 and 249.14 min, respectively, and in the placebo group 224.69 and 188.14 min, respectively. Epistaxis duration improved in both groups, with no significant difference in our main objective comparing epistaxis before and after treatment (p = 0.77); however, there was a significant difference in evolution when comparing epistaxis before and during treatment (p = 0.04). Toxicity was low and no severe adverse events were reported. In conclusion, tacrolimus nasal ointment, administered for six weeks, did not improve epistaxis in HHT patients after the end of the treatment. However, the good tolerance, associated with a significant improvement in epistaxis duration during treatment, encouraged us to perform a phase 3 trial on a larger patient population with a main outcome of epistaxis duration during treatment and a longer treatment time.

Purpose: To describe a five-grade classification of ectopia lentis in Marfan syndrome (MFS) and to evaluate the positive predictive value of the early grades of ectopia lentis. Methods: We prospectively included MFS patients and their healthy relatives. The anterior segment examination was classified into grades 0 to 5, and we studied the sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value of ectopia lentis in this classification. Results: Seventy-four MFS patients and thirty-six healthy controls were examined. In the MFS group, grades 1, 2, 3, and 4 were present in 15, 24, 17, and 7 patients, respectively, whereas 11 patients in this group did not present ectopia lentis. In the control group, grades 0 and 1 were observed in 30 and 6 individuals, respectively. Sensitivity to ectopia lentis of at least grade 2 was 64.9%, with 100% specificity, whereas sensitivity to ectopia lentis of at least grade 1 was 85.1%, with 83.3% specificity. The positive predictive value of ectopia lentis that was greater than or equal to grade 2 was 100%, whereas that of ectopia lentis greater than or equal to grade 1 was 91.3%. Conclusions: High positive predictive values s were found to be associated with grades 2 and higher of the five-grade classification of ectopia lentis. This classification should help to harmonize clinical practices for this major feature of MFS.