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DOI: 10.1002/jca.22026
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Correspondence
Antonio Paez, MD, Grifols, Alzheimer's Abstract
Research Group, Avinguda de la Background: In the Alzheimer Management by Albumin Replacement
Generalitat, 152-158, 08174 Sant Cugat del
(AMBAR) study, mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients were
Vallès, Barcelona, Spain.
Email: antonio.paez@grifols.com treated with a plasma exchange (PE) program. Feasibility and safety of PE in
this specific population are poorly understood and were analyzed in detail in
Funding information
this study.
Grifols
Methods: Qualified patients were treated with 6 weeks of weekly conven-
tional therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) with albumin replacement followed
by monthly low-volume plasma exchange (LVPE) for 12 months. The patients
were divided into four groups: placebo (sham PE treatment), low-albumin
(20 g), low-albumin + intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) (10 g), and high-
albumin (40 g) + IVIG (20 g). Adverse events (AEs) were recorded and ana-
lyzed for all PE treatment groups and PE modalities.
Results: PE procedure-related AEs were more common in the active treat-
ment groups (16.9% out of 1283 TPE and 12.5% out of 2203 LVPE were
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© 2022 The Authors. Journal of Clinical Apheresis published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.
associated with at least one AE, a similar rate than in other PE indications)
than in the placebo group (0.7% out of 1223 sham PE). Percentage of proce-
dures with at least one AEs was higher with central venous access compared to
peripheral venous access in all three active treatment groups (20.1% vs 13.1%,
respectively).
Conclusion: The TPE and LVPE procedures used in the AMBAR study on
mild-to-moderate AD population were as safe and feasible as in other thera-
peutic applications of PE or routine plasmapheresis.
KEYWORDS
adverse event, Alzheimer's disease, apheresis, cognition, dementia, intravenous
immunoglobulin, plasma exchange, plasmapheresis, venous access
F I G U R E 1 Outline of treatment
periods and distribution of treatment
groups in the AMBAR study.
IVIG, intravenous immunoglobulin;
LVPE, low-volume plasma exchange;
TPE, therapeutic plasma exchange
Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Pharma- The treatment period in the AMBAR study was
ceuticals for Human Use, and Good Clinical Practice. The 14 months. Weekly PE was performed for 6 weeks in the
protocol, the informed consent form, and the patient infor- treatment groups during a therapeutic plasma exchange
mation sheets were approved by Institutional Review (TPE) treatment period, followed by a 12-month period
Boards or Ethics Committees from the sites and the of monthly LVPE treatments.15,31 Figure 1 summarizes
Health Authorities in Spain and the United States. The the treatment periods and the distribution of patients in
informed consent was obtained from each patient or their the treatment groups.
qualified representative prior to enrollment in the study.
The “safety population” (ie, all patients included in the A commercial continuous flow cell separator was used for
study and subjected to at least one PE session)31 consisted TPE. During the TPE treatments, approximately one
of 322 patients (54% women and 46% men), average age plasma volume (2500-3000 mL of plasma or 35-45 mL/kg
of 69.0 ± 7.7 years, with a diagnosis of mild-to-moderate based on height, weight, and hematocrit) was removed and
AD (by National Institute of Neurological and Communi- replaced by an equal volume of 5% albumin (125-150 g)
cation Disorders and Stroke-Alzheimer's Disease and under continuous flow. Each session was carried out at an
Related Disorders Association criteria) and had an aver- infusion rate of 60-100 mL/min. An infusion typically
age Mini-Mental State Examination score of 21.6 ± 2.6. started at a low rate, and was increased as tolerated.
Details on demographic and clinical characteristics of
patients as well as full inclusion and exclusion criteria
are available in the primary paper31 and summarized in 2.5 | LVPE treatment
Table SI.
For LVPE, a prototype modified from commercial plasma
donation devices (Autopheresis-C; Fenwal, Lake Zurich, IL
2.3 | Treatment groups or Aurora; Fresenius Kabi, Bad Homburg, Germany) devel-
oped by Fresenius Kabi and Grifols was used. Further
Enrolled patients were randomly assigned to one of four information on LVPE devices is provided in the “LVPE
groups (1:1:1:1). PE with albumin (Albutein 5%, Grifols) devices” section of the Supporting Information Material.
replacement for the intensive phase and PE with albumin Central or peripheral venous access for TPE was cho-
(Albutein 20%, Grifols) replacement for the maintenance sen by the personnel at the study sites based on their
phase was administered in two different doses (“low” and practice. When chosen, placement and verification of
“high” albumin), to three of the groups. Two of the PE central venous access was performed according to exist-
groups also received IVIG (Flebogamma 5% DIF, Grifols, ing standard procedures at the study site. All LVPE pro-
Barcelona, Spain). A simulated noninvasive PE procedure cedures were performed via peripheral venous access.15,31
(“sham”) that did not involve any fluid transfer was per- LVPE differs from routine plasmapheresis (plasma
formed on the placebo group (details below). donation) only in that there is the replacement of
48 BOADA ET AL.
F I G U R E 2 Preparation of sham central venous catheter assembly used in sham therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE). A, Shown is the
hydrocolloid patch on pediatric urostomy bag prior to removal of the bag. B, Shown are the bevel cut on the catheter tip and the point of
insertion through the ostomy patch. C, Central venous catheter assembly has been inserted through the ostomy patch and sutured in
place. D, Sham central venous catheter completed with dressings in place
removed plasma with albumin or IVIG, hence PE. In 2.6 | Sham PE treatment
contrast to TPE, in the LVPE treatments the flow was dis-
continuous: first, 690-880 mL of plasma (using a plasma Patients in the placebo group were given sham treat-
donation nomogram based on weight, see Table SII) were ments at the same time points as PE was performed in
removed, and afterwards it was replaced with 100 to the active treatment groups (Figure 1). Sham treatments
200 mL 20% albumin (20 g albumin = “low-albumin” were designed to simulate PE as realistically as possible
and 40 g albumin = “high-albumin”). This plasma vol- to maintain patient blinding (Figure 2). No plasma was
ume is similar to that removed during a routine plasma- removed and no albumin or IVIG was administered dur-
pheresis. Participating centers could decide to administer ing sham treatments. Further information on sham treat-
saline solution after LVPE to prevent hypovolemia and ment is provided in the “Sham PE treatment” section of
blood pressure-related adverse events (AEs) caused by the Supporting Information Material.
the discontinuity between cell separation and albumin
infusion.
In two of the groups (“low-albumin + IVIG” and 2.7 | Safety assessments and analysis
“high-albumin + IVIG”), the albumin infusions were
alternated with IVIG (10 g IVIG = “low IVIG” or 20 g The primary safety assessment was the percent of TPE
IVIG = “high IVIG”) every 4 months during the LVPE (including consideration to venous access: central vs
period15,31 (see Figure 1). Albumin dosage was adjusted peripheral) and LVPE procedures associated with at
based on the volume of plasma removed while IVIG least one AE related to the study procedure. AEs with
doses were fixed (Table SII). an onset ≤72 h after the end of a PE procedure were
BOADA ET AL. 49
considered related to procedure. In addition, the per- IVIG treatment: 64.0% for low-albumin + IVIG and
centage of TPE and LVPE procedures associated with 67.1% for the high-albumin + IVIG group.
an AE that was or was not related to the PE procedure The volume of PE during the six TPE procedures was
was assessed. very similar across procedures and across active treat-
Statistics were descriptive, and included frequencies ment groups: from 2385.6 ± 68.7 to 2674.4 ± 63.7 mL
and percentages for categorical variables, and means, (mean ± SE). The plasma volume exchanged was also
medians, and/or ranges for continuous variables. similar across the active treatment groups during the
12 LVPE procedures: from 719.9 ± 22.1 to 885.0
± 163.7 mL.
3 | R E SUL T S
3.1 | Study and procedure completion 3.3 | All AEs (regardless of relationship
rates to procedure)
The distribution of enrolled patients into the four groups When all AEs within 72 h of PE were assessed for all PE
is shown in Table 1. One patient randomized to placebo procedures, the percentage of PE affected with any AE
group received inadvertently a real central venous cathe- ranged from 4.1% in the placebo group to 18.8% in the
ter. The patient was then included in the high- high-albumin + IVIG group. The low-albumin group had
albumin + IVIG group but analyzed in the placebo group AEs in 16.4% of the procedures, similar to the low-
for efficacy analysis and considered as a treated patient albumin + IVIG group (15.7%).
for safety analysis. A total of 4709 PE procedures were When all AEs were summarized (regardless of tim-
performed (3486 real; 1223 sham). TPE made up 1283 of ing), AEs were found to be more common in the active
the active treatments and 2203 were LVPE. treatment groups than in the placebo group (90.1% vs
70.9%, respectively, of patients reported at least 1 AE dur-
ing the study).
3.2 | PE procedure characteristics
Elapsed time for the TPE procedures were similar across all 3.4 | Procedure-related AEs
treatment groups for the first treatment (approximately
110 min) and was shortened slightly over the course of the Out of the 4709 total PE procedures, 501 (10.6%) were
TPE procedures (96.1-107.8 min for last TPE). The duration associated with 637 procedure-related AEs within the
of the sham procedure was shorter than the TPE (approxi- 72 h after procedure completion. The percentage of pro-
mately 60 min vs approximately 100-110 min). cedures associated with at least one AE was higher for
When the number of planned PE procedures com- the TPE procedures (16.9%) than for the LVPE proce-
pleted was examined over the course of the study, the dures (12.5%).
percentage of procedures completed was highest in the The rate of procedures with at least one AE was similar
placebo and low-albumin groups (79.7% and 79.5%, in all the active treatment groups: 13.5% for the low-
respectively) compared with the groups that included albumin group, 12.5% for the low-albumin + IVIG group
50 BOADA ET AL.
F I G U R E 3 Adverse events (AEs) over the course of the study by treatment group. IVIG, intravenous immunoglobulin; LVPE,
low-volume plasma exchange; TPE, therapeutic plasma exchange period
T A B L E 2 Number of procedure-related adverse events for all therapeutic plasma exchange procedures in central versus peripheral
venous access by treatment group
Abbreviations: AE, adverse event; IVIG, intravenous immunoglobulin; TPE, therapeutic plasma exchange.
and 16.5% for the high-albumin + IVIG group. Conversely, (% of PE with at least 1 related AE) of TPE or LVPE were:
for the placebo (sham treatment) group the rate was 0.7%. General Disorders and Administration Site Conditions
(4.2% and 2.8%, respectively; mainly catheter- and injec-
tion site-related AEs), nervous system disorders (3.5%
3.5 | TPE vs LVPE-related AEs and 2.6%, respectively; mainly dizziness, paresthesia, and
presyncope), and Vascular Disorders (2.5% and 4.4%,
When procedure-related AEs were broken down into respectively; mainly hypotension). Further details are
TPE and LVPE treatments, the pattern was the same as provided in Table SIII.
that seen for all PE procedures. For TPE procedures the
incidence of procedures with at least one associated AEs
was as follows: placebo 1.1%; low-albumin 17.4%, low- 3.6 | Central vs peripheral access-
albumin + IVIG 15.2%, and high-albumin + IVIG related AEs
18.3%. For the LVPE procedures, procedures with at
least one associated AEs were similarly low in the pla- The percentage of TPE procedures with at least one
cebo group (0.5%) and higher in the active treatment procedure-related AE was calculated for central and
groups: low-albumin 11.3%; low-albumin + IVIG 10.9%, peripheral venous access (Table 2). Percentage of proce-
and high-albumin + IVIG 15.4%. These results are sum- dures with at least one AE was higher with central access
marized in Figure 3. AEs frequency was distinctly compared to peripheral access in all three active treat-
higher during the TPE phase of the study compared to ment groups (20.1% vs 13.1%, respectively). The incidence
the LVPE phase. of procedures with at least one associated AE in the pla-
The most frequently reported types (MedDRA Pre- cebo group was very low (1.4% central and 0.9%
ferred Term) of procedure-related AEs based on numbers peripheral).
BOADA ET AL. 51
The most frequently reported types (MedDRA Pre- donation is a very common and well-tolerated procedure
ferred Term) of procedure-related AEs based on numbers with an estimated 48.7 million donations occurring in the
(% of PE with at least 1 related AE) of TPE with central United States in 2018.48 The relative safety of these dona-
access were general disorders and administration site tions is indicated by the previously described studies and
conditions (6.0%, mainly catheter site erythema), and by data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
nervous system disorders (4.7%, mainly dizziness, pares- Studies of AEs associated with plasma donation have
thesia, and syncope). In TPE with peripheral access, no shown that these events are very rare.49,50
AE category stand out over others. Further details are Some of the most common AEs previously reported in
provided in Table SIV. the primary results of the AMBAR study were clearly
related to the procedure itself: extravasation and injection
site reactions.31 However, some of the other AEs have been
4 | DISCUSSION reported as associated with the administration of the
replacement fluids—albumin and IVIG. Hypotension is
PE has been used safely in multiple neurological disor- one of the most common side effects reported after admin-
ders, such as severe acute inflammatory demyelinating istration of albumin.51 Hypotension has been reported with
polyneuropathy, Guillain-Barré syndrome, multiple scle- IVIG as well.52 The higher incidence of hypotension in the
rosis, and others.23,33-38 PE is a well-studied procedure LVPE can be ascribed to the discontinuity between cell sep-
and AEs could theoretically be anticipated based on clini- aration and albumin infusion in the procedure. Injection
cal experience and the existing information on the safety site reactions and dizziness have been also previously
profile of the administered products, albumin and IVIG, reported in the primary results of the AMBAR study31 and
used in the AMBAR trial.39,40 However, PE had never after IVIG administration.52 The higher incidence of AEs in
been tested in AD, typically an aged patient population the treatment groups that received albumin and IVIG may
with associated health issues. account for the higher withdrawal rate in these groups.
The basic safety analysis of the AMBAR trial previ- When overall AEs (related and unrelated to proce-
ously reported that 90% of the PE procedures were dures) were considered, the number of patients with AEs
uneventful,31 as expected based on the safety profile for reported in the placebo group was 69.6%. This suggests
PE previously reported.37,41-43 The high percentage that the overall population in this study had underlying
of finalized procedures and the relatively low incidence health issues. In fact, medical records taken at baseline
of AEs highlighted the feasibility and safety, respectively, before treatment inception showed that 98.8% of the
of this procedure in mild-to-moderate AD patients. Here overall patient population reported relevant medical
we extended the safety analysis emphasizing the proce- conditions,31 which could account for the number of
dure type (TPE vs LVPE), the different PE treatment nonprocedure-related AEs in the study.
modalities (albumin doses; with/without IVIG) and TPE Limitations of the AMBAR trial include that AD
venous access (central vs peripheral). patients were diagnosed based on the clinical phenotype
The large number of proven and potential therapeutic rather than on biomarkers, as well as a possible imperfec-
indications for PE can be interpreted that the procedure tion of the blinding procedure, in addition to the shorter
is generally considered safe. This has been substantiated time allotted for the placebo procedure compared to the
in multiple studies.44-47 Similar to the results of the pre- elapsed time for the actual procedure in treated groups.
sent study, Guptill et al. found a low rate of serious com- However, the low consent withdrawal rate observed in
plications with PE and a greater frequency of AEs with the placebo group suggest that blinding was effective.
central access when compared to peripheral access.46
When the safety of PE was studied in a geriatric popula-
tion and compared to a nongeriatric population, it was 5 | CONCLUSION
determined that frequency and nature of AEs were simi-
lar.45 These results agree with the current study, in that Overall, PE using albumin with or without IVIG was fea-
TPE was found to be a safe and tolerable procedure even sible and well-tolerated by AD patients, which are typi-
in elderly populations with serious medical conditions. cally an elderly population with associated health issues.
In the current study, the safety and utility of LVPE, a Frequency and nature of procedure-related AEs were
new PE modality based on conventional plasma dona- similar to those observed in other PE-treated diseases.
tion, was also demonstrated. The low incidence of AEs The large number of successful TPE + LVPE procedures
with the LVPE procedures in this study agrees with pub- conducted in this specific population suggests that PE
lished literature on the safety of plasma donation. Plasma could be a viable therapeutic approach to treat AD.
52 BOADA ET AL.
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Anaya F, et al. Feasibility, safety, and tolerability of
S UP PO RT ING IN FOR MAT ION two modalities of plasma exchange with albumin
Additional supporting information can be found online replacement to treat elderly patients with
in the Supporting Information section at the end of this Alzheimer's disease in the AMBAR study. J Clin
article. Apher. 2023;38(1):45‐54. doi:10.1002/jca.22026