This was a multi-center, open label, single-arm, phase IV study to better characterize the long-term safety of nilotinib in patients treated in Novartis-sponsored studies and who benefited from treatment with nilotinib.
Patients who were enrolled in Novartis-sponsored nilotinib studies, had benefitted from treatment with nilotinib and fulfilled all requirements in the parent study could be enrolled into the current roll-over study.
There was no sample size estimation carried out for this study.
Patients returned to the study center on a quarterly basis (12 weeks ± 1 week) for scheduled visit. Adverse Events (AEs) (non-serious and serious AEs), clinical benefit assessment by investigator and study medication dispensing information were collected.
The original protocol of the current roll-over study was designed to provide continuation of treatment with nilotinib for patients enrolled in nilotinib studies. Therefore, the original protocol did not require AEs (non-serious and serious AEs) to be collected into the clinical database and only required serious adverse events (SAEs) to be collected in the Novartis safety database throughout the study duration.
The scheduled visit frequency was annually.
However, feedback from health authorities stated that all AEs should be collected. To account for this, the protocol was amended in 2016 (Protocol amendment 3 (PA 3)), with the primary objective changed to assess long-term safety of nilotinib. Consequently, PA 3 started to require all AEs (non-serious and serious AEs) to be entered into the clinical database, in addition to the continued SAE collection into the Novartis safety database. At the same time, the scheduled visit frequency was increased from annually to quarterly, and the protocol was also amended to require an investigator assessment of clinical benefit for patients.