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Natalizumab is effective in multiple sclerosis patients switching from other disease modifying therapies in clinical practice
Neurological Sciences, 05/14/2012
Clinical Article
Lanzillo R et al. – Natalizumab showed to decrease annualised relapse rate (ARR), stabilize Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), increase the percentage of contrast–enhancing lesions (CELs) free patients and decrease the number of CELs in a group of 50 poor responders to classical DMT, after the first 12 months of therapy.
Methods- The authors retrospectively selected patients who had been treated with natalizumab for at least 12 months after switching from one or more DMTs.
- They collected clinical and neuroradiological data and they analysed the reduction in annualised relapse rate (ARR), the change of Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) and the reduction of contrast-enhancing lesions (CELs) at magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain at 12 months of natalizumab and of previous DMT therapy.
- Fifty patients were included in the analysis (11 males, 39 females).
- They observed a reduction of ARR on natalizumab (p = 0.000) and a statistically significant different trend of relapse event between the two treatments (p = 0.0149).
- EDSS was stable during natalizumab therapy whilst it showed an increase on DMTs (p = 0.0244).
- The number of CELs decreased significantly (p = 0.006) during the 12 months of treatment with natalizumab, whilst it was stable on DMTs.