Disease-modifying therapy may significantly reduce rates of disability-worsening events in patients with clinically isolated syndrome and early multiple sclerosis, a study showed.
Dr. Vilija G. Jokubaitis of the University of Melbourne in Parkville, Australia, and her associates examined data from 1,989 patients with clinically isolated syndrome enrolled in the MSBase Incident Study, split into groups according to proportion of time treated. Of the 391 patients who had a first 3-month disability-worsening event, 307 (78.5%) had worsening events that were sustained for at least 12 months.
A greater proportion of follow-up time exposed to treatment was associated with greater reductions in the rate of worsening. Patients exposed to disease-modifying therapy (DMT) for between 51% and 80% of their follow-up time had a 36% and a 57% reduction in the rate of 3-month confirmed and 12-month sustained disability-worsening events, respectively, the investigators reported.
The effect of DMT on reduction in short- and long-term disability worsening is not quite certain, although the researchers identified several factors that are predictors of individual first 3-month confirmed worsening events such as older age at clinically isolated syndrome onset, baseline dysfunction within the pyramidal system, and annualized relapse rate.
Read the full article here: Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology 2015 (doi:10.1002/acn3.187).
