Would you recommend avoiding use of bimekizumab in patients at higher risk of fungal infections such as patients with diabetes who are on SGLT-2 inhibitors which also increase the risk of fungal infections?
How will you counsel patients about the risk and what strategies will you use to mitigate the increased risk of fungal infections see in the BE COMPLETE trial?
Answer from: at Academic Institution
At this point, I do not see this as an issue. The increased risk seen with IL17 inhibitors is overwhelmingly oral candidiasis and not candidiasis elsewhere, or other fungal infections. In the clinical trials, this risk seems to be higher with bimekizumab than with secukinumab or ixekizumab, which ma...
Not necessarily. It depends on the patient, previous drug exposures, level of diabetes control, and the patient's compliance. I educate them about what to look for regarding fungal infections, and I would avoid bimekizumab in patients who are noncompliant and do not have good diabetes control.