Update On Dr. Faustman's BCG Research

There was some media buzz about Dr. Faustman's BCG research as reported on a poster at ADA 2017.  I can't link directly to it, but you can go to this page:
https://ada.apprisor.org/epsSearchADA.cfm
and search for Faustman to see the poster and the abstract.

Dr. Faustman's research has about 15 years of history, which I've blogged about before, here:
* http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com/2014/04/dr-faustman-starts-phase-ii-trial-for.html
* http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com/2012/08/summary-of-drfaustmans-phase-i-results.html
And in several other blogs.

But to summarize very quickly: Dr. Faustman's previous research was based on the idea that BCG (a Tuberculosis vaccine) increases the levels of TNF, and higher TNF levels could result in less autoreactive T cells, and this would lead to a cure for type-1 diabetes.  Unfortunately, this did not pan out.  Her phase-I trial showed that BCG did not change the levels of live autoreactive T cells in circulation.  However, using some non-standard data analysis, Dr. Faustman interpreted the phase-I study to show that there was an increase in T-reg immune cells.  T-reg cells get rid of the autoreactive T cells, so increasing the T-reg cell count could also lead to a cure for type-1 diabetes.

What is the New News?

The poster presented at ADA 2017 contained data on a possible mechanism whereby BCG could increase the level of T-regs in a type-1 diabetic.  This mechanism involved changes to how genes are used in the body (called "epigenetic changes").  These changes can be long lasting.  Obviously, a long lasting treatment is better than a short lasting one, so (if this finding is confirmed by more research) this is good news.

Also, although not required, it is nice to have a theoretical basis for why a treatment should work, if you are going to test that treatment. This is particularly true of the BCG research, since the phase-I trial showed pretty clearly that the previous theory was wrong, so having a new theory is good.

How Important Is This?

In my opinion, it is not very important. Why not?  In a nutshell:
1. It's a finding about a possible mechanism of how a cure works, not evidence of effectiveness, for a treatment where effectiveness is the important, unanswered question.
2. It's based on data from 3 people.
3. It's a poster, not a presentation (or a paper).

1. It's a mechanistic finding so it is aimed at answering the question "how does BCG work?", but the important question is "does BCG work?"  That needs to be answered before the "how" question is important.  The results from the phase-I trial were not successful (see discussion below).  Therefore, for me, research into the mechanism of how it might work is less important until we get some evidence that it does work.

2. Dr. Faustman's phase-I study gave BCG to only three people.  It is the smallest phase-I study I have ever covered in the field of type-1 diabetes.  This poster is based on data from those same 3 people, and that is not a large enough foundation to get me excited.

3. As a poster, this is a lesser form of publication, than a journal article or a presentation.  That is not fatal, of course, but it is a handicap.  For comparison, Gleevec and Oral Insulin both merited presentations, so the organizers of the ADA scientific sessions clearly thought that those studies were more important than this BCG result.  (And I agree with them.)

Some Discussion on The Results From the Phase-I Trial

Obviously, Dr. Faustman considers the phase-I trial to be a success, which is why she has started a phase-II trial, so why do I consider it unsuccessful?  For two reasons:

First, the normal definition of success for a clinical trial is successful results from the primary outcome.  Her phase-I trial's primary outcome was autoreactive T cells, and there was no difference between the the treated group and the control group.  So that's an unsuccessful result.

She did report two tiny successful outcomes in her secondary results.  But to get those, she had to do two different data manipulations.  I discussed those in detail in 2012 when the original results were published:
http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com/2012/08/details-of-dr-faustmans-phase-i-results.html
See the section called "Weaknesses in Data Analysis".

A very short summary is:
1. She shifted 1/3 of her control group to be analysed as though it were in the treatment group, after she had seen the results, and saw that would change the outcomes.
2. She did not use a single control group.  Rather, she used different control groups for different outcomes, including (in some cases) pulling data from other studies.

My older blog posting describes in detail how damaging these are to her analysis.  But suffice it to say, if the data shows success, there is no reason to do those manipulations.  And if the data is successful (even at a tiny level), only after those manipulations, then how real is it?

Now, if her phase-II study (which is expected to enroll about 150 people) is successful using standard data analysis techniques, then she can rerun this poster study with data from those 150 people.  She will then have more people and a successful treatment and at that point, a mechanistic study would be interesting. The phase-II study is expected to end around 2023.


Joshua Levy 
http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com
publicjoshualevy at gmail dot com
All the views expressed here are those of Joshua Levy, and nothing here is official JDRF or JDCA news, views, policies or opinions. My daughter has type-1 diabetes and participates in clinical trials, which might be discussed here. My blog contains a more complete non-conflict of interest statement. Thanks to everyone who helps with the blog.