Adeno-associated virus gene therapy for hemophilia: an update meta-analysis and systematic review.

INTRODUCTION

Remarkable clinical benefits have been achieved for patients with haemophilia through intravenously administered adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based liver-directed gene therapy. However, no comprehensive meta-analysis based on hemophilia types, various transgene types, AAV capsid, neutralizing antibody titers, and baseline factor VIII activity has been conducted to assess the efficacy of AAV vector gene therapy in hemophilic patients. We aimed to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature to assess the efficacy and safety of AAV-based gene therapy for hemophilia.

METHODS

We systematically searched PubMed, Clinical Trials, Medline, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for clinical trials involving patients diagnosed with hemophilia and treated with AAV gene therapy. The outcomes included annualized bleeding rate (ABR), annualized infusion rate (AIR), the incidence of treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) elevation, and aspartate transaminase (AST) elevation.

RESULTS

A total of 13 articles were selected from 879 articles for meta-analysis. Pooled analyses showed that after gene therapy, the ABR was 1.10 and the AIR was 3.92, respectively. At 1 year after AAV gene therapy, all participants exhibited factor activity levels above their baseline values, with the highest level reaching 93.47%. Additionally, 50% of the hemophilia patients had elevated TRAEs, 50% had elevated ALT levels, and 29% had elevated AST levels. We also performed a subgroup analysis of these results according to different haemophilia types, various transgene types, AAV capsids, neutralizing antibody titers, and baseline factor VIII activity.

DISCUSSION: Our analysis supported the efficacy and safety of AAV-mediated gene therapy for hemophilia, providing a reference for clinical practice and the development of more gene therapy drugs.