GAD vaccine reduces insulin loss in recently diagnosed type 1 diabetes: findings from a Bayesian meta-analysis

GAD is a major target of the autoimmune response that occurs in type 1 diabetes mellitus. Randomised controlled clinical trials of a GAD + alum vaccine in human participants have so far given conflicting results.

In this study, we sought to see whether a clearer answer to the question of whether GAD65 has an effect on C-peptide could be reached by combining individual-level data from the randomised controlled trials using Bayesian meta-analysis to estimate the probability of a positive biological effect (a reduction in C-peptide loss compared with placebo approximately 1 year after the GAD vaccine).

We estimate that there is a 98% probability that 20 μg GAD with alum administered twice yields a positive biological effect. The effect is probably a 15-20% reduction in the loss of C-peptide at approximately 1 year after treatment. This translates to an annual expected loss of between -0.250 and -0.235 pmol/ml in treated patients compared with an expected 2 h AUC loss of -0.294 pmol/ml at 1 year for untreated newly diagnosed patients.

The biological effect of this vaccination should be developed further in order to reach clinically desirable reductions in insulin loss in patients recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.