Multiple Sclerosis

The latest research on therapeutic management of patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) presented at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) 2024 annual meeting is reported by Dr Pavan Bhargava from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Dr Bhargava first discusses a small study out of Germany exploring child development after exposure to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) during breastfeeding. Currently, most mAbs are not approved for use during lactation. However, researchers found that infants studied for up to 36 months showed no evidence of adverse development or health effects compared with controls.   

Next, Dr Bhargava discusses a trial examining pregnancy and infant outcomes in patients receiving ocrelizumab. They analyzed registry data of 3000 pregnancies and determined that in-utero exposure to ocrelizumab was not associated with an increased risk for adverse outcomes.  

He then details a small, single-center cohort study evaluating the infection rates associated with anti-CD20 use in pediatric-onset RRMS. The study reported that approximately one third of participants experienced moderate to severe infections over 5 years of follow-up.  

Finally, Dr Bhargava highlights the CHIMES trial, a 1-year analysis of efficacy and safety data from Black and Hispanic persons with RRMS who received ocrelizumab. Researchers found that the overall efficacy and safety results were similar to prior ocrelizumab clinical trials.

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Pavan Bhargava, MD, Associate Professor, Staff Physician, Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland 

Pavan Bhargava, MD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships 

The latest research on therapeutic management of patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) presented at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) 2024 annual meeting is reported by Dr Pavan Bhargava from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Dr Bhargava first discusses a small study out of Germany exploring child development after exposure to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) during breastfeeding. Currently, most mAbs are not approved for use during lactation. However, researchers found that infants studied for up to 36 months showed no evidence of adverse development or health effects compared with controls.   

Next, Dr Bhargava discusses a trial examining pregnancy and infant outcomes in patients receiving ocrelizumab. They analyzed registry data of 3000 pregnancies and determined that in-utero exposure to ocrelizumab was not associated with an increased risk for adverse outcomes.  

He then details a small, single-center cohort study evaluating the infection rates associated with anti-CD20 use in pediatric-onset RRMS. The study reported that approximately one third of participants experienced moderate to severe infections over 5 years of follow-up.  

Finally, Dr Bhargava highlights the CHIMES trial, a 1-year analysis of efficacy and safety data from Black and Hispanic persons with RRMS who received ocrelizumab. Researchers found that the overall efficacy and safety results were similar to prior ocrelizumab clinical trials.

--

Pavan Bhargava, MD, Associate Professor, Staff Physician, Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland 

Pavan Bhargava, MD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships 

The latest research on therapeutic management of patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) presented at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) 2024 annual meeting is reported by Dr Pavan Bhargava from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Dr Bhargava first discusses a small study out of Germany exploring child development after exposure to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) during breastfeeding. Currently, most mAbs are not approved for use during lactation. However, researchers found that infants studied for up to 36 months showed no evidence of adverse development or health effects compared with controls.   

Next, Dr Bhargava discusses a trial examining pregnancy and infant outcomes in patients receiving ocrelizumab. They analyzed registry data of 3000 pregnancies and determined that in-utero exposure to ocrelizumab was not associated with an increased risk for adverse outcomes.  

He then details a small, single-center cohort study evaluating the infection rates associated with anti-CD20 use in pediatric-onset RRMS. The study reported that approximately one third of participants experienced moderate to severe infections over 5 years of follow-up.  

Finally, Dr Bhargava highlights the CHIMES trial, a 1-year analysis of efficacy and safety data from Black and Hispanic persons with RRMS who received ocrelizumab. Researchers found that the overall efficacy and safety results were similar to prior ocrelizumab clinical trials.

--

Pavan Bhargava, MD, Associate Professor, Staff Physician, Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland 

Pavan Bhargava, MD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships 

Biomarkers indicating worsening of progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) can inform decisions about treatment, and two studies presented at the 2024 American Academy of Neurology meeting show promise in this area.

Dr Patricia Coyle of Stony Brook University Hospital in Stony Brook, New York, discusses a study showing that stool glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) was markedly increased in patients with progressive MS vs those with relapsing-remitting disease or healthy controls.

A separate study using brain and cervical spine MRI showed that cervical spine gray matter atrophy, particularly at C2-3, strongly correlated with disability markers in patients with progressive MS.

Dr Coyle closes by outlining a small but important study showing that nasal foralumab dampened microglial activation and stabilized clinical progression in patients with progressive MS.

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Patricia K. Coyle, MD, Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Neurology; Director, MS Comprehensive Care Center, Stony Brook University Hospital, Stony Brook, New York 

Patricia K. Coyle, MD, has disclosed the following relevant financial relationships: 

Serve(d) as a director, officer, partner, employee, advisor, consultant, or trustee for: Accordant; Amgen; Biogen; Bristol Myers Squibb; Eli Lilly & Company; EMD Serono; GSK; Genentech; Horizon; LabCorp; Mylan; Novartis; Sanofi Genzyme; Viatris 

Received research grant from: Celgene; CorEvitas LLC; Genentech/Roche; NINDS; Sanofi Genzyme

Biomarkers indicating worsening of progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) can inform decisions about treatment, and two studies presented at the 2024 American Academy of Neurology meeting show promise in this area.

Dr Patricia Coyle of Stony Brook University Hospital in Stony Brook, New York, discusses a study showing that stool glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) was markedly increased in patients with progressive MS vs those with relapsing-remitting disease or healthy controls.

A separate study using brain and cervical spine MRI showed that cervical spine gray matter atrophy, particularly at C2-3, strongly correlated with disability markers in patients with progressive MS.

Dr Coyle closes by outlining a small but important study showing that nasal foralumab dampened microglial activation and stabilized clinical progression in patients with progressive MS.

--

Patricia K. Coyle, MD, Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Neurology; Director, MS Comprehensive Care Center, Stony Brook University Hospital, Stony Brook, New York 

Patricia K. Coyle, MD, has disclosed the following relevant financial relationships: 

Serve(d) as a director, officer, partner, employee, advisor, consultant, or trustee for: Accordant; Amgen; Biogen; Bristol Myers Squibb; Eli Lilly & Company; EMD Serono; GSK; Genentech; Horizon; LabCorp; Mylan; Novartis; Sanofi Genzyme; Viatris 

Received research grant from: Celgene; CorEvitas LLC; Genentech/Roche; NINDS; Sanofi Genzyme

Biomarkers indicating worsening of progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) can inform decisions about treatment, and two studies presented at the 2024 American Academy of Neurology meeting show promise in this area.

Dr Patricia Coyle of Stony Brook University Hospital in Stony Brook, New York, discusses a study showing that stool glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) was markedly increased in patients with progressive MS vs those with relapsing-remitting disease or healthy controls.

A separate study using brain and cervical spine MRI showed that cervical spine gray matter atrophy, particularly at C2-3, strongly correlated with disability markers in patients with progressive MS.

Dr Coyle closes by outlining a small but important study showing that nasal foralumab dampened microglial activation and stabilized clinical progression in patients with progressive MS.

--

Patricia K. Coyle, MD, Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Neurology; Director, MS Comprehensive Care Center, Stony Brook University Hospital, Stony Brook, New York 

Patricia K. Coyle, MD, has disclosed the following relevant financial relationships: 

Serve(d) as a director, officer, partner, employee, advisor, consultant, or trustee for: Accordant; Amgen; Biogen; Bristol Myers Squibb; Eli Lilly & Company; EMD Serono; GSK; Genentech; Horizon; LabCorp; Mylan; Novartis; Sanofi Genzyme; Viatris 

Received research grant from: Celgene; CorEvitas LLC; Genentech/Roche; NINDS; Sanofi Genzyme

DENVER — Among patients with major depressive disorder, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) had similar efficacy to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), according to results from a retrospective study of patients treated in the past 20 years.

“We always learn in our textbooks that after about two or three medication trials is when you can start exploring more serious treatment protocols, such as ECT or TMS, but a lot of these patients weren’t going forward with it, and I was curious about it. I figured that TMS, which is a less expensive, less scary procedure that patients would more likely be open to, that is also approved for treatment resistant depression, would be a good alternative to ECT,” said Anuttham Kandhadai, a third-year medical student at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who presented the study at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
 

Study Findings Lead to More Questions

The researchers found lower rates of depressive episodes, suicidal attempts, and suicidal ideation among patients treated with TMS, but an important limitation was that the researchers did not know the severity of the depression in the two patient groups, according to Branch Coslett, MD, who attended the session and has performed research with TMS to treat aphasia in stroke patients. “I think it’s a very interesting study, and certainly something worth pursuing, but given that ECT is only used as a last resort, whereas TMS is often used as a second-line therapy, I think you’re really talking about very different populations that have had these treatments,” said Dr. Coslett.

Mr. Kandhadai recognized the limitations of the study and looks forward to expanding the research. “I’d love to explore cost effectiveness of the treatments. I’d love to explore patient familiarity and patient comfort with different treatments. And I’d also love to explore a more controlled study that can determine how severe someone’s depression is, and then be able to control for that and explore the outcomes based on the treatment protocol,” he said.

The ideal comparative study would be prospective, “but that will never be done. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and similar sources of information have really poisoned the well,” said Dr. Coslett. However, he noted that advances have been made in ECT, and that targeting the right hemisphere produces fewer side effects: “The outcomes from unilateral right hemisphere stimulation are said to be every bit as good or maybe better, and you don’t get the confusion, you don’t get the memory loss, you don’t get all that sort of stuff that you’d expect when somebody has a prolonged, generalized tonic-clonic seizure.”

Still, people are naturally reluctant to undergo ECT. “I’ve seen it. It’s pretty barbaric. It’s better now and at my institution, people do get it, but they really, really have to be intractable,” he said.
 

Comparing Treatment Options

Mr. Kandhadai and his co-authors used the TriNetX database to identify patients with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder who received TMS or ECT in the past 20 years. There were 2,916 patients in both cohorts, who were matched by age, sex, ethnicity, mood and behavioral disorders, endocrine disorders, intellectual disabilities, cerebrovascular disease, and other nervous system disorders. The mean age at treatment was 48.2 years, 38.5% were male, and 3.1% were Black or African American.

Short-term outcomes favored TMS, including the frequency of disorientation (0.41% vs 2.81%), retrograde amnesia (0.34% vs 0.65%), and headache (4.36% vs 7.20%). Long-term outcomes from 1 month to 5 years post treatment were also better in the TMS group, including depressive episodes (44.99% vs 53.77%), suicide attempts (3.98% vs 6.86%), and suicidal ideation (12.38% vs 23.49%). Kaplan-Meier curve analysis between 1 month and 5 years showed a benefit to TMS in probability of not experiencing a depressive episode, and not experiencing suicidal ideation.

“ECT has been the gold standard of treatment resistant depression for a long time, and it deserves to be. I think it’s something you should offer your patients. Not everyone might be comfortable with it, and if they’re not, I think it’s important to not stop the conversation there, but to offer something like TMS because TMS is something that might be more accessible to patients. It might be more affordable, and it might be less scary,” said Mr. Kandhadai

Mr. Kandhadai and Dr. Coslett have no relevant financial disclosures.

DENVER — Among patients with major depressive disorder, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) had similar efficacy to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), according to results from a retrospective study of patients treated in the past 20 years.

“We always learn in our textbooks that after about two or three medication trials is when you can start exploring more serious treatment protocols, such as ECT or TMS, but a lot of these patients weren’t going forward with it, and I was curious about it. I figured that TMS, which is a less expensive, less scary procedure that patients would more likely be open to, that is also approved for treatment resistant depression, would be a good alternative to ECT,” said Anuttham Kandhadai, a third-year medical student at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who presented the study at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
 

Study Findings Lead to More Questions

The researchers found lower rates of depressive episodes, suicidal attempts, and suicidal ideation among patients treated with TMS, but an important limitation was that the researchers did not know the severity of the depression in the two patient groups, according to Branch Coslett, MD, who attended the session and has performed research with TMS to treat aphasia in stroke patients. “I think it’s a very interesting study, and certainly something worth pursuing, but given that ECT is only used as a last resort, whereas TMS is often used as a second-line therapy, I think you’re really talking about very different populations that have had these treatments,” said Dr. Coslett.

Mr. Kandhadai recognized the limitations of the study and looks forward to expanding the research. “I’d love to explore cost effectiveness of the treatments. I’d love to explore patient familiarity and patient comfort with different treatments. And I’d also love to explore a more controlled study that can determine how severe someone’s depression is, and then be able to control for that and explore the outcomes based on the treatment protocol,” he said.

The ideal comparative study would be prospective, “but that will never be done. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and similar sources of information have really poisoned the well,” said Dr. Coslett. However, he noted that advances have been made in ECT, and that targeting the right hemisphere produces fewer side effects: “The outcomes from unilateral right hemisphere stimulation are said to be every bit as good or maybe better, and you don’t get the confusion, you don’t get the memory loss, you don’t get all that sort of stuff that you’d expect when somebody has a prolonged, generalized tonic-clonic seizure.”

Still, people are naturally reluctant to undergo ECT. “I’ve seen it. It’s pretty barbaric. It’s better now and at my institution, people do get it, but they really, really have to be intractable,” he said.
 

Comparing Treatment Options

Mr. Kandhadai and his co-authors used the TriNetX database to identify patients with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder who received TMS or ECT in the past 20 years. There were 2,916 patients in both cohorts, who were matched by age, sex, ethnicity, mood and behavioral disorders, endocrine disorders, intellectual disabilities, cerebrovascular disease, and other nervous system disorders. The mean age at treatment was 48.2 years, 38.5% were male, and 3.1% were Black or African American.

Short-term outcomes favored TMS, including the frequency of disorientation (0.41% vs 2.81%), retrograde amnesia (0.34% vs 0.65%), and headache (4.36% vs 7.20%). Long-term outcomes from 1 month to 5 years post treatment were also better in the TMS group, including depressive episodes (44.99% vs 53.77%), suicide attempts (3.98% vs 6.86%), and suicidal ideation (12.38% vs 23.49%). Kaplan-Meier curve analysis between 1 month and 5 years showed a benefit to TMS in probability of not experiencing a depressive episode, and not experiencing suicidal ideation.

“ECT has been the gold standard of treatment resistant depression for a long time, and it deserves to be. I think it’s something you should offer your patients. Not everyone might be comfortable with it, and if they’re not, I think it’s important to not stop the conversation there, but to offer something like TMS because TMS is something that might be more accessible to patients. It might be more affordable, and it might be less scary,” said Mr. Kandhadai

Mr. Kandhadai and Dr. Coslett have no relevant financial disclosures.

DENVER — Among patients with major depressive disorder, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) had similar efficacy to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), according to results from a retrospective study of patients treated in the past 20 years.

“We always learn in our textbooks that after about two or three medication trials is when you can start exploring more serious treatment protocols, such as ECT or TMS, but a lot of these patients weren’t going forward with it, and I was curious about it. I figured that TMS, which is a less expensive, less scary procedure that patients would more likely be open to, that is also approved for treatment resistant depression, would be a good alternative to ECT,” said Anuttham Kandhadai, a third-year medical student at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who presented the study at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
 

Study Findings Lead to More Questions

The researchers found lower rates of depressive episodes, suicidal attempts, and suicidal ideation among patients treated with TMS, but an important limitation was that the researchers did not know the severity of the depression in the two patient groups, according to Branch Coslett, MD, who attended the session and has performed research with TMS to treat aphasia in stroke patients. “I think it’s a very interesting study, and certainly something worth pursuing, but given that ECT is only used as a last resort, whereas TMS is often used as a second-line therapy, I think you’re really talking about very different populations that have had these treatments,” said Dr. Coslett.

Mr. Kandhadai recognized the limitations of the study and looks forward to expanding the research. “I’d love to explore cost effectiveness of the treatments. I’d love to explore patient familiarity and patient comfort with different treatments. And I’d also love to explore a more controlled study that can determine how severe someone’s depression is, and then be able to control for that and explore the outcomes based on the treatment protocol,” he said.

The ideal comparative study would be prospective, “but that will never be done. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and similar sources of information have really poisoned the well,” said Dr. Coslett. However, he noted that advances have been made in ECT, and that targeting the right hemisphere produces fewer side effects: “The outcomes from unilateral right hemisphere stimulation are said to be every bit as good or maybe better, and you don’t get the confusion, you don’t get the memory loss, you don’t get all that sort of stuff that you’d expect when somebody has a prolonged, generalized tonic-clonic seizure.”

Still, people are naturally reluctant to undergo ECT. “I’ve seen it. It’s pretty barbaric. It’s better now and at my institution, people do get it, but they really, really have to be intractable,” he said.
 

Comparing Treatment Options

Mr. Kandhadai and his co-authors used the TriNetX database to identify patients with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder who received TMS or ECT in the past 20 years. There were 2,916 patients in both cohorts, who were matched by age, sex, ethnicity, mood and behavioral disorders, endocrine disorders, intellectual disabilities, cerebrovascular disease, and other nervous system disorders. The mean age at treatment was 48.2 years, 38.5% were male, and 3.1% were Black or African American.

Short-term outcomes favored TMS, including the frequency of disorientation (0.41% vs 2.81%), retrograde amnesia (0.34% vs 0.65%), and headache (4.36% vs 7.20%). Long-term outcomes from 1 month to 5 years post treatment were also better in the TMS group, including depressive episodes (44.99% vs 53.77%), suicide attempts (3.98% vs 6.86%), and suicidal ideation (12.38% vs 23.49%). Kaplan-Meier curve analysis between 1 month and 5 years showed a benefit to TMS in probability of not experiencing a depressive episode, and not experiencing suicidal ideation.

“ECT has been the gold standard of treatment resistant depression for a long time, and it deserves to be. I think it’s something you should offer your patients. Not everyone might be comfortable with it, and if they’re not, I think it’s important to not stop the conversation there, but to offer something like TMS because TMS is something that might be more accessible to patients. It might be more affordable, and it might be less scary,” said Mr. Kandhadai

Mr. Kandhadai and Dr. Coslett have no relevant financial disclosures.

DENVER – Real-world, US claims-based data show major gaps in the care and management of three major neurologic disorders: Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis (MS).

Investigators led by Nikki Win, PhD, medical manager/team lead, OMNI Scientific Strategy and Collaborations, US Medical Affairs, Genentech/Roche, found that patients with Parkinson’s disease were referred to a specialist most often, followed by those with MS and those with AD. 

The findings were presented at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).
 

National Neurologist Shortage

The national neurologist shortage, coupled with the growing incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, MS, and other conditions has led the AAN and other organizations to call for expanding the role of primary care physicians in the diagnosis and management of neurologic disorders, the leading global cause of disability.

“These neurological conditions are increasing in prevalence and there’s a limited number of neurologists, so we wanted to understand what this looks like in the US,” Dr. Win said.

“There is a need to understand the patient journey from primary care to neurology care, from presentation of a suspected neurological disorder to diagnosis, referral to a specialist, and the time elapsed before the specialist visit for Alzheimer’s disease, MS, and Parkinson’s disease in the US,” Dr. Win added. 

Timely and accurate diagnoses of neurologic disorders can optimize treatment outcomes. Because many of these diseases are first detected during a visit with a primary care physician, it is important to understand the timeline from the initial visit to a specialist referral, the investigators noted. 
 

Analyzing Trends in Specialist Referrals

Using claims data from the Optum Normative Health Information database, researchers identified 48,525 adults with Alzheimer’s disease, 26,431 with Parkinson’s disease, and 8169 with MS who received a diagnosis from a primary care physician between 2016 and 2021.

They examined the proportion, timing, and demographic factors associated with referrals from primary care clinicians or other healthcare providers to specialists including neurologists, neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, and geriatric medicine specialists.

Results showed that patients with Parkinson’s disease were referred to a specialist most often (53%), followed by those with MS (42%) and those with Alzheimer’s disease (27%).

Individuals with Alzheimer’s disease waited the longest for a specialist referral, with a median of 10 months between the time of referral and the first specialist visit compared with 5.7 months for patients with Parkinson’s disease and 2.6 months for MS patients.

“Some patients with common conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, MS, and Parkinson’s disease don’t see a neurologist, and when they do, it can take as long as 10 months,” said Dr. Win.

Using zip code heatmaps, researchers found that the proportion of referrals for all neurologic disorders was higher in the Midwest and Northeast, whereas patients in the South and West were less likely to receive a referral. 

Referrals for Alzheimer’s disease were low nationwide, except for some areas of Michigan and New England. California had the lowest referral rate for MS, followed by regions in the South and Northeast. Patients with Parkinson’s disease living in the Midwest and Northeast were more likely than those in the West to receive a specialist referral. 

Previous studies have reported regional shortages of neurologists, said Dr. Win. “Our data seem to correlate that in terms of the areas with lower referral patterns, but as to whether that is causative or correlative, we don’t know.” 

Odds of referral were also influenced by demographic characteristics such as sex, age, race, and ethnicity, investigators found. 

For example, there were fewer referrals with increasing age across all three neurologic disorders, and men were more likely than women to be referred for Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Compared with White patients, Parkinson’s disease referrals were less likely among African American, Asian, and Hispanic patients and Alzheimer’s disease referrals were less common among Asian and Hispanic patients.

Insurance status also affected referrals. People with MS and Parkinson’s disease who had commercial insurance were referred more often than were those with Medicare Advantage, said Dr. Win.

She also noted, “Additional research is needed to understand how being referred or not being referred to a neurologist actually impacts patient treatment, care and outcomes.”
 

Neurology Challenges

Commenting on the research, Thomas Vidic, MD, a community neurologist in Elkhart, Indiana, and clinical professor of neurology at Indiana University School of Medicine at South Bend, said that he was surprised by the variation in wait times for patients.

This, he said, could reflect a study limitation or a higher comfort level among primary care doctors in treating dementia.

With respect to MS, Dr. Vidic said that he believes primary care physicians may not be uncertain about prescribing the approved medications for the disease because there are so many of them.

In addition, patients with Alzheimer’s disease are older and perhaps less accepting of being referred to a specialist that may be hours away.

The bottom line for Dr. Vidic, though, is the lack of specialists. “It comes back to the fact we’re not doing a good job of having community neurologists available to take care of these problems,” he said.

The issue of community neurologist shortages was underlined by the study’s findings about geographic gaps in specialist referrals across the country, he said.

Neurologists make up about 2% of the medical workforce and this has remained static for some time, Dr. Vidic noted. Meanwhile, people are living longer and developing more neurologic diseases.

Dr. Vidic also pointed to the lack of neurology training programs. “There has not been a significant change in the number of programs in the last 10-15 years,” he said.

Study funding was not disclosed. Dr. Win reports receiving personal compensation for serving as an employee of Genentech and has stock in Genentech. Dr. Vidic reports no relevant financial disclosures.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

DENVER – Real-world, US claims-based data show major gaps in the care and management of three major neurologic disorders: Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis (MS).

Investigators led by Nikki Win, PhD, medical manager/team lead, OMNI Scientific Strategy and Collaborations, US Medical Affairs, Genentech/Roche, found that patients with Parkinson’s disease were referred to a specialist most often, followed by those with MS and those with AD. 

The findings were presented at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).
 

National Neurologist Shortage

The national neurologist shortage, coupled with the growing incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, MS, and other conditions has led the AAN and other organizations to call for expanding the role of primary care physicians in the diagnosis and management of neurologic disorders, the leading global cause of disability.

“These neurological conditions are increasing in prevalence and there’s a limited number of neurologists, so we wanted to understand what this looks like in the US,” Dr. Win said.

“There is a need to understand the patient journey from primary care to neurology care, from presentation of a suspected neurological disorder to diagnosis, referral to a specialist, and the time elapsed before the specialist visit for Alzheimer’s disease, MS, and Parkinson’s disease in the US,” Dr. Win added. 

Timely and accurate diagnoses of neurologic disorders can optimize treatment outcomes. Because many of these diseases are first detected during a visit with a primary care physician, it is important to understand the timeline from the initial visit to a specialist referral, the investigators noted. 
 

Analyzing Trends in Specialist Referrals

Using claims data from the Optum Normative Health Information database, researchers identified 48,525 adults with Alzheimer’s disease, 26,431 with Parkinson’s disease, and 8169 with MS who received a diagnosis from a primary care physician between 2016 and 2021.

They examined the proportion, timing, and demographic factors associated with referrals from primary care clinicians or other healthcare providers to specialists including neurologists, neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, and geriatric medicine specialists.

Results showed that patients with Parkinson’s disease were referred to a specialist most often (53%), followed by those with MS (42%) and those with Alzheimer’s disease (27%).

Individuals with Alzheimer’s disease waited the longest for a specialist referral, with a median of 10 months between the time of referral and the first specialist visit compared with 5.7 months for patients with Parkinson’s disease and 2.6 months for MS patients.

“Some patients with common conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, MS, and Parkinson’s disease don’t see a neurologist, and when they do, it can take as long as 10 months,” said Dr. Win.

Using zip code heatmaps, researchers found that the proportion of referrals for all neurologic disorders was higher in the Midwest and Northeast, whereas patients in the South and West were less likely to receive a referral. 

Referrals for Alzheimer’s disease were low nationwide, except for some areas of Michigan and New England. California had the lowest referral rate for MS, followed by regions in the South and Northeast. Patients with Parkinson’s disease living in the Midwest and Northeast were more likely than those in the West to receive a specialist referral. 

Previous studies have reported regional shortages of neurologists, said Dr. Win. “Our data seem to correlate that in terms of the areas with lower referral patterns, but as to whether that is causative or correlative, we don’t know.” 

Odds of referral were also influenced by demographic characteristics such as sex, age, race, and ethnicity, investigators found. 

For example, there were fewer referrals with increasing age across all three neurologic disorders, and men were more likely than women to be referred for Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Compared with White patients, Parkinson’s disease referrals were less likely among African American, Asian, and Hispanic patients and Alzheimer’s disease referrals were less common among Asian and Hispanic patients.

Insurance status also affected referrals. People with MS and Parkinson’s disease who had commercial insurance were referred more often than were those with Medicare Advantage, said Dr. Win.

She also noted, “Additional research is needed to understand how being referred or not being referred to a neurologist actually impacts patient treatment, care and outcomes.”
 

Neurology Challenges

Commenting on the research, Thomas Vidic, MD, a community neurologist in Elkhart, Indiana, and clinical professor of neurology at Indiana University School of Medicine at South Bend, said that he was surprised by the variation in wait times for patients.

This, he said, could reflect a study limitation or a higher comfort level among primary care doctors in treating dementia.

With respect to MS, Dr. Vidic said that he believes primary care physicians may not be uncertain about prescribing the approved medications for the disease because there are so many of them.

In addition, patients with Alzheimer’s disease are older and perhaps less accepting of being referred to a specialist that may be hours away.

The bottom line for Dr. Vidic, though, is the lack of specialists. “It comes back to the fact we’re not doing a good job of having community neurologists available to take care of these problems,” he said.

The issue of community neurologist shortages was underlined by the study’s findings about geographic gaps in specialist referrals across the country, he said.

Neurologists make up about 2% of the medical workforce and this has remained static for some time, Dr. Vidic noted. Meanwhile, people are living longer and developing more neurologic diseases.

Dr. Vidic also pointed to the lack of neurology training programs. “There has not been a significant change in the number of programs in the last 10-15 years,” he said.

Study funding was not disclosed. Dr. Win reports receiving personal compensation for serving as an employee of Genentech and has stock in Genentech. Dr. Vidic reports no relevant financial disclosures.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

DENVER – Real-world, US claims-based data show major gaps in the care and management of three major neurologic disorders: Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis (MS).

Investigators led by Nikki Win, PhD, medical manager/team lead, OMNI Scientific Strategy and Collaborations, US Medical Affairs, Genentech/Roche, found that patients with Parkinson’s disease were referred to a specialist most often, followed by those with MS and those with AD. 

The findings were presented at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).
 

National Neurologist Shortage

The national neurologist shortage, coupled with the growing incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, MS, and other conditions has led the AAN and other organizations to call for expanding the role of primary care physicians in the diagnosis and management of neurologic disorders, the leading global cause of disability.

“These neurological conditions are increasing in prevalence and there’s a limited number of neurologists, so we wanted to understand what this looks like in the US,” Dr. Win said.

“There is a need to understand the patient journey from primary care to neurology care, from presentation of a suspected neurological disorder to diagnosis, referral to a specialist, and the time elapsed before the specialist visit for Alzheimer’s disease, MS, and Parkinson’s disease in the US,” Dr. Win added. 

Timely and accurate diagnoses of neurologic disorders can optimize treatment outcomes. Because many of these diseases are first detected during a visit with a primary care physician, it is important to understand the timeline from the initial visit to a specialist referral, the investigators noted. 
 

Analyzing Trends in Specialist Referrals

Using claims data from the Optum Normative Health Information database, researchers identified 48,525 adults with Alzheimer’s disease, 26,431 with Parkinson’s disease, and 8169 with MS who received a diagnosis from a primary care physician between 2016 and 2021.

They examined the proportion, timing, and demographic factors associated with referrals from primary care clinicians or other healthcare providers to specialists including neurologists, neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, and geriatric medicine specialists.

Results showed that patients with Parkinson’s disease were referred to a specialist most often (53%), followed by those with MS (42%) and those with Alzheimer’s disease (27%).

Individuals with Alzheimer’s disease waited the longest for a specialist referral, with a median of 10 months between the time of referral and the first specialist visit compared with 5.7 months for patients with Parkinson’s disease and 2.6 months for MS patients.

“Some patients with common conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, MS, and Parkinson’s disease don’t see a neurologist, and when they do, it can take as long as 10 months,” said Dr. Win.

Using zip code heatmaps, researchers found that the proportion of referrals for all neurologic disorders was higher in the Midwest and Northeast, whereas patients in the South and West were less likely to receive a referral. 

Referrals for Alzheimer’s disease were low nationwide, except for some areas of Michigan and New England. California had the lowest referral rate for MS, followed by regions in the South and Northeast. Patients with Parkinson’s disease living in the Midwest and Northeast were more likely than those in the West to receive a specialist referral. 

Previous studies have reported regional shortages of neurologists, said Dr. Win. “Our data seem to correlate that in terms of the areas with lower referral patterns, but as to whether that is causative or correlative, we don’t know.” 

Odds of referral were also influenced by demographic characteristics such as sex, age, race, and ethnicity, investigators found. 

For example, there were fewer referrals with increasing age across all three neurologic disorders, and men were more likely than women to be referred for Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Compared with White patients, Parkinson’s disease referrals were less likely among African American, Asian, and Hispanic patients and Alzheimer’s disease referrals were less common among Asian and Hispanic patients.

Insurance status also affected referrals. People with MS and Parkinson’s disease who had commercial insurance were referred more often than were those with Medicare Advantage, said Dr. Win.

She also noted, “Additional research is needed to understand how being referred or not being referred to a neurologist actually impacts patient treatment, care and outcomes.”
 

Neurology Challenges

Commenting on the research, Thomas Vidic, MD, a community neurologist in Elkhart, Indiana, and clinical professor of neurology at Indiana University School of Medicine at South Bend, said that he was surprised by the variation in wait times for patients.

This, he said, could reflect a study limitation or a higher comfort level among primary care doctors in treating dementia.

With respect to MS, Dr. Vidic said that he believes primary care physicians may not be uncertain about prescribing the approved medications for the disease because there are so many of them.

In addition, patients with Alzheimer’s disease are older and perhaps less accepting of being referred to a specialist that may be hours away.

The bottom line for Dr. Vidic, though, is the lack of specialists. “It comes back to the fact we’re not doing a good job of having community neurologists available to take care of these problems,” he said.

The issue of community neurologist shortages was underlined by the study’s findings about geographic gaps in specialist referrals across the country, he said.

Neurologists make up about 2% of the medical workforce and this has remained static for some time, Dr. Vidic noted. Meanwhile, people are living longer and developing more neurologic diseases.

Dr. Vidic also pointed to the lack of neurology training programs. “There has not been a significant change in the number of programs in the last 10-15 years,” he said.

Study funding was not disclosed. Dr. Win reports receiving personal compensation for serving as an employee of Genentech and has stock in Genentech. Dr. Vidic reports no relevant financial disclosures.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

A unique autoantibody signature of multiple sclerosis (MS) is detectable in the blood of people with the disease years before symptom onset, according to a new study.

Investigators screened blood samples from 250 individuals with MS drawn 5 years before and 1 year after symptom onset, profiled MS-related autoantibodies, and compared the sample with 250 matched controls.

A unique cluster of autoantibodies was found in 10% of people with MS, appearing up to 5 years before the onset of clinical symptoms and remaining higher 1 year after diagnosis. 

“Our work demonstrates that a subset of MS patients has antibodies that react to a common protein motif, both before, during, and after diagnosis and symptom onset,” said lead investigator Colin R. Zamecnik, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSF School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco.

Such a discovery could aid in early diagnosis, Dr. Zamecnik added. MS treatments “have gotten much better in the last 15-20 years and evidence shows early treatment can improve outcomes,” he said. 

The study was published online in Nature Medicine.
 

Seeking Earlier Diagnosis

Previous research shows that nonspecific neurologic episodes occur more frequently in people who received an MS diagnosis later in life, pointing to the possibility of an MS prodrome, the authors noted.

These neurologic episodes may be indicative of ongoing neuroinflammatory processes in the preclinical period, they added. Studies in several other autoimmune diseases show that diagnostic autoantibodies can appear years before symptom onset. However, no such antibodies have previously been identified in MS patients. 

To investigate, the researchers turned to data from a large, prospective incident MS cohort assembled during the Gulf War era in more than 10 million US military veterans.

Records of those with the earliest diagnosis (an average of 5 years before symptom onset) and 1 year after the first attack were analyzed, and matched controls were selected.

Investigators used a technique called phage display immunoprecipitation sequencing to screen human blood for antibodies. They conducted a whole-proteome autoantibody screen and serum neurofilament light (sNfL) measurements on these samples in both case patients and controls at the same time points. 
 

Early Signs of Injury

In the preclinical serum samples, sNfL levels were higher nearer the date of diagnosis and significantly higher in post- versus pre-onset samples in people with MS. “Together, these data provide evidence that at least some people with MS exhibit early signs of neuroaxonal injury long before onset of symptoms,” the authors noted.

Analysis of the collection of peptides, described by the investigators as an “autoantibody signature,” was consistent over time and was present regardless of diagnosis. 

Further analysis of the autoantibodies revealed a characteristic protein motif found in common viruses, including Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and hepatitis C virus, among others.

The motif “shares remarkable similarity to those found on many pathogens that infect humans, including EBV, which is known to be a risk factor for development of MS,” Dr. Zamecnik said.

The researchers validated these findings by analyzing serum and cerebrospinal fluid samples from participants in ORIGINS, an MS cohort at the University of California, San Francisco, that enrolled patients at clinical onset. As with the other cohort, 10% of patients had the autoantibody signature. 

The investigators added that the findings detail some of the first autoantigen-specific biomarkers found in preclinical MS. 

“Taken together, our future work will focus on profiling these patients more closely over time to see how they differ from their counterparts and gives further evidence of viral-host crosstalk as a hallmark of this disease,” Dr. Zamecnik said.
 

Not Ready for Prime Time

Commenting on the findings, Bruce Bebo, PhD, executive vice president of research, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, said the study corroborates the “growing appreciation that MS has a prodrome.” 

Such a discovery might “accelerate progress toward the possibility of treating MS ever-earlier in the course of the disease, or possibly even preventing MS from occurring in the first place,” he added.

Dr. Bebo, who was not involved in this research, noted that it was conducted at a single center, is only preliminary, and “has no immediate clinical applicability.”

Also, because this pattern was identified in only 10% of individuals with MS, “an additional hurdle is whether we can identify other patterns in greater numbers of people,” he added.

This work was supported by the Valhalla Foundation; the Weill Neurohub; the Westridge Foundation; the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Multiple Sclerosis Society; the Department of Defense; the German Society of Multiple Sclerosis; the Water Cove Charitable Foundation; Tim and Laura O’Shaughnessy; the Littera Family; School of Medicine Dean’s Yearlong Fellowship, supported by residual funds from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Medical Fellows at UCSF; the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub San Francisco; the John A. Watson Scholar Program at UCSF; the Hanna H. Gray Fellowship, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; the National Institutes of Health; and the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Dr. Zamecnik received funding toward this study from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Water Cove Charitable Foundation. He declared no competing financial interests. The other authors’ disclosures are listed on the original paper. Dr. Bebo is the executive vice president of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, which provided support for the study. 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

A unique autoantibody signature of multiple sclerosis (MS) is detectable in the blood of people with the disease years before symptom onset, according to a new study.

Investigators screened blood samples from 250 individuals with MS drawn 5 years before and 1 year after symptom onset, profiled MS-related autoantibodies, and compared the sample with 250 matched controls.

A unique cluster of autoantibodies was found in 10% of people with MS, appearing up to 5 years before the onset of clinical symptoms and remaining higher 1 year after diagnosis. 

“Our work demonstrates that a subset of MS patients has antibodies that react to a common protein motif, both before, during, and after diagnosis and symptom onset,” said lead investigator Colin R. Zamecnik, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSF School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco.

Such a discovery could aid in early diagnosis, Dr. Zamecnik added. MS treatments “have gotten much better in the last 15-20 years and evidence shows early treatment can improve outcomes,” he said. 

The study was published online in Nature Medicine.
 

Seeking Earlier Diagnosis

Previous research shows that nonspecific neurologic episodes occur more frequently in people who received an MS diagnosis later in life, pointing to the possibility of an MS prodrome, the authors noted.

These neurologic episodes may be indicative of ongoing neuroinflammatory processes in the preclinical period, they added. Studies in several other autoimmune diseases show that diagnostic autoantibodies can appear years before symptom onset. However, no such antibodies have previously been identified in MS patients. 

To investigate, the researchers turned to data from a large, prospective incident MS cohort assembled during the Gulf War era in more than 10 million US military veterans.

Records of those with the earliest diagnosis (an average of 5 years before symptom onset) and 1 year after the first attack were analyzed, and matched controls were selected.

Investigators used a technique called phage display immunoprecipitation sequencing to screen human blood for antibodies. They conducted a whole-proteome autoantibody screen and serum neurofilament light (sNfL) measurements on these samples in both case patients and controls at the same time points. 
 

Early Signs of Injury

In the preclinical serum samples, sNfL levels were higher nearer the date of diagnosis and significantly higher in post- versus pre-onset samples in people with MS. “Together, these data provide evidence that at least some people with MS exhibit early signs of neuroaxonal injury long before onset of symptoms,” the authors noted.

Analysis of the collection of peptides, described by the investigators as an “autoantibody signature,” was consistent over time and was present regardless of diagnosis. 

Further analysis of the autoantibodies revealed a characteristic protein motif found in common viruses, including Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and hepatitis C virus, among others.

The motif “shares remarkable similarity to those found on many pathogens that infect humans, including EBV, which is known to be a risk factor for development of MS,” Dr. Zamecnik said.

The researchers validated these findings by analyzing serum and cerebrospinal fluid samples from participants in ORIGINS, an MS cohort at the University of California, San Francisco, that enrolled patients at clinical onset. As with the other cohort, 10% of patients had the autoantibody signature. 

The investigators added that the findings detail some of the first autoantigen-specific biomarkers found in preclinical MS. 

“Taken together, our future work will focus on profiling these patients more closely over time to see how they differ from their counterparts and gives further evidence of viral-host crosstalk as a hallmark of this disease,” Dr. Zamecnik said.
 

Not Ready for Prime Time

Commenting on the findings, Bruce Bebo, PhD, executive vice president of research, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, said the study corroborates the “growing appreciation that MS has a prodrome.” 

Such a discovery might “accelerate progress toward the possibility of treating MS ever-earlier in the course of the disease, or possibly even preventing MS from occurring in the first place,” he added.

Dr. Bebo, who was not involved in this research, noted that it was conducted at a single center, is only preliminary, and “has no immediate clinical applicability.”

Also, because this pattern was identified in only 10% of individuals with MS, “an additional hurdle is whether we can identify other patterns in greater numbers of people,” he added.

This work was supported by the Valhalla Foundation; the Weill Neurohub; the Westridge Foundation; the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Multiple Sclerosis Society; the Department of Defense; the German Society of Multiple Sclerosis; the Water Cove Charitable Foundation; Tim and Laura O’Shaughnessy; the Littera Family; School of Medicine Dean’s Yearlong Fellowship, supported by residual funds from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Medical Fellows at UCSF; the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub San Francisco; the John A. Watson Scholar Program at UCSF; the Hanna H. Gray Fellowship, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; the National Institutes of Health; and the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Dr. Zamecnik received funding toward this study from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Water Cove Charitable Foundation. He declared no competing financial interests. The other authors’ disclosures are listed on the original paper. Dr. Bebo is the executive vice president of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, which provided support for the study. 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

A unique autoantibody signature of multiple sclerosis (MS) is detectable in the blood of people with the disease years before symptom onset, according to a new study.

Investigators screened blood samples from 250 individuals with MS drawn 5 years before and 1 year after symptom onset, profiled MS-related autoantibodies, and compared the sample with 250 matched controls.

A unique cluster of autoantibodies was found in 10% of people with MS, appearing up to 5 years before the onset of clinical symptoms and remaining higher 1 year after diagnosis. 

“Our work demonstrates that a subset of MS patients has antibodies that react to a common protein motif, both before, during, and after diagnosis and symptom onset,” said lead investigator Colin R. Zamecnik, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSF School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco.

Such a discovery could aid in early diagnosis, Dr. Zamecnik added. MS treatments “have gotten much better in the last 15-20 years and evidence shows early treatment can improve outcomes,” he said. 

The study was published online in Nature Medicine.
 

Seeking Earlier Diagnosis

Previous research shows that nonspecific neurologic episodes occur more frequently in people who received an MS diagnosis later in life, pointing to the possibility of an MS prodrome, the authors noted.

These neurologic episodes may be indicative of ongoing neuroinflammatory processes in the preclinical period, they added. Studies in several other autoimmune diseases show that diagnostic autoantibodies can appear years before symptom onset. However, no such antibodies have previously been identified in MS patients. 

To investigate, the researchers turned to data from a large, prospective incident MS cohort assembled during the Gulf War era in more than 10 million US military veterans.

Records of those with the earliest diagnosis (an average of 5 years before symptom onset) and 1 year after the first attack were analyzed, and matched controls were selected.

Investigators used a technique called phage display immunoprecipitation sequencing to screen human blood for antibodies. They conducted a whole-proteome autoantibody screen and serum neurofilament light (sNfL) measurements on these samples in both case patients and controls at the same time points. 
 

Early Signs of Injury

In the preclinical serum samples, sNfL levels were higher nearer the date of diagnosis and significantly higher in post- versus pre-onset samples in people with MS. “Together, these data provide evidence that at least some people with MS exhibit early signs of neuroaxonal injury long before onset of symptoms,” the authors noted.

Analysis of the collection of peptides, described by the investigators as an “autoantibody signature,” was consistent over time and was present regardless of diagnosis. 

Further analysis of the autoantibodies revealed a characteristic protein motif found in common viruses, including Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and hepatitis C virus, among others.

The motif “shares remarkable similarity to those found on many pathogens that infect humans, including EBV, which is known to be a risk factor for development of MS,” Dr. Zamecnik said.

The researchers validated these findings by analyzing serum and cerebrospinal fluid samples from participants in ORIGINS, an MS cohort at the University of California, San Francisco, that enrolled patients at clinical onset. As with the other cohort, 10% of patients had the autoantibody signature. 

The investigators added that the findings detail some of the first autoantigen-specific biomarkers found in preclinical MS. 

“Taken together, our future work will focus on profiling these patients more closely over time to see how they differ from their counterparts and gives further evidence of viral-host crosstalk as a hallmark of this disease,” Dr. Zamecnik said.
 

Not Ready for Prime Time

Commenting on the findings, Bruce Bebo, PhD, executive vice president of research, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, said the study corroborates the “growing appreciation that MS has a prodrome.” 

Such a discovery might “accelerate progress toward the possibility of treating MS ever-earlier in the course of the disease, or possibly even preventing MS from occurring in the first place,” he added.

Dr. Bebo, who was not involved in this research, noted that it was conducted at a single center, is only preliminary, and “has no immediate clinical applicability.”

Also, because this pattern was identified in only 10% of individuals with MS, “an additional hurdle is whether we can identify other patterns in greater numbers of people,” he added.

This work was supported by the Valhalla Foundation; the Weill Neurohub; the Westridge Foundation; the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Multiple Sclerosis Society; the Department of Defense; the German Society of Multiple Sclerosis; the Water Cove Charitable Foundation; Tim and Laura O’Shaughnessy; the Littera Family; School of Medicine Dean’s Yearlong Fellowship, supported by residual funds from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Medical Fellows at UCSF; the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub San Francisco; the John A. Watson Scholar Program at UCSF; the Hanna H. Gray Fellowship, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; the National Institutes of Health; and the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Dr. Zamecnik received funding toward this study from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Water Cove Charitable Foundation. He declared no competing financial interests. The other authors’ disclosures are listed on the original paper. Dr. Bebo is the executive vice president of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, which provided support for the study. 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

The utility of cannabinoids to treat most medical conditions remains uncertain at best, but for at least three indications the data lean in favor of effectiveness, Ellie Grossman, MD, MPH, told attendees recently at the 2024 American College of Physicians Internal Medicine meeting.

Those are neuropathic pain, chemotherapy-induced nausea or vomiting, and spasticity in people with multiple sclerosis, said Dr. Grossman, an instructor at Harvard Medical School in Boston and medical director for primary care/behavioral health integration at Cambridge Health Alliance in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Dearth of Research Persists

Research is sorely lacking and of low quality in the field for many reasons, Dr. Grossman said. Most of the products tested come from outside the United States and often are synthetic and taken orally — which does not match the real-world use when patients go to dispensaries for cannabis derived directly from plants (or the plant product itself). And studies often rely on self-report.

Chronic pain is by far the top reason patients say they use medical cannabis, Dr. Grossman said. A Cochrane review of 16 studies found only that the potential benefits of cannabis may outweigh the potential harms for chronic neuropathic pain.
 

No Evidence in OUD

Dr. Grossman said she is frequently asked if cannabis can help people quit taking opioids. The answer seems to be no. A study published earlier this year in states with legalized medical or recreational cannabis found no difference between rates of opioid overdose compared with states with no such laws. “It seems like it doesn’t do anything to help us with our opioid problem,” she said.

Nor does high-quality evidence exist showing use of cannabis can improve sleep, she said. A 2022 systematic review found fewer than half of studies showed the substance useful for sleep outcomes. “Where studies were positives, it was in people who had chronic pain,” Dr. Grossman noted. Research indicates cannabis may have substantial benefit for chronic pain compared with placebo.
 

Potential Harms

If the medical benefits of cannabis are murky, the evidence for its potential harms, at least in the short term, are clearer, according to Dr. Grossman. A simplified guideline for prescribing medical cannabinoids in primary care includes sedation, feeling high, dizziness, speech disorders, muscle twitching, hypotension, and several other conditions among the potential hazards of the drug. 

But the potential for long-term harm is uncertain. “All the evidence comes from people who have been using it for recreational reasons,” where there may be co-use of tobacco, self-reported outcomes, and recall bias, she said. The characteristics of people using cannabis recreationally often differ from those using it medicinally.
 

Use With Other Controlled Substances

Dr. Grossman said clinicians should consider whether the co-use of cannabis and other controlled substances, such as benzodiazepines, opioids, or Adderall, raises the potential risks associated with those drugs. “Ultimately it comes down to talking to your patients,” she said. If a toxicity screen shows the presence of controlled substances, ask about their experience with the drugs they are using and let them know your main concern is their safety.

Dr. Grossman reported no relevant financial conflicts of interest.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

The utility of cannabinoids to treat most medical conditions remains uncertain at best, but for at least three indications the data lean in favor of effectiveness, Ellie Grossman, MD, MPH, told attendees recently at the 2024 American College of Physicians Internal Medicine meeting.

Those are neuropathic pain, chemotherapy-induced nausea or vomiting, and spasticity in people with multiple sclerosis, said Dr. Grossman, an instructor at Harvard Medical School in Boston and medical director for primary care/behavioral health integration at Cambridge Health Alliance in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Dearth of Research Persists

Research is sorely lacking and of low quality in the field for many reasons, Dr. Grossman said. Most of the products tested come from outside the United States and often are synthetic and taken orally — which does not match the real-world use when patients go to dispensaries for cannabis derived directly from plants (or the plant product itself). And studies often rely on self-report.

Chronic pain is by far the top reason patients say they use medical cannabis, Dr. Grossman said. A Cochrane review of 16 studies found only that the potential benefits of cannabis may outweigh the potential harms for chronic neuropathic pain.
 

No Evidence in OUD

Dr. Grossman said she is frequently asked if cannabis can help people quit taking opioids. The answer seems to be no. A study published earlier this year in states with legalized medical or recreational cannabis found no difference between rates of opioid overdose compared with states with no such laws. “It seems like it doesn’t do anything to help us with our opioid problem,” she said.

Nor does high-quality evidence exist showing use of cannabis can improve sleep, she said. A 2022 systematic review found fewer than half of studies showed the substance useful for sleep outcomes. “Where studies were positives, it was in people who had chronic pain,” Dr. Grossman noted. Research indicates cannabis may have substantial benefit for chronic pain compared with placebo.
 

Potential Harms

If the medical benefits of cannabis are murky, the evidence for its potential harms, at least in the short term, are clearer, according to Dr. Grossman. A simplified guideline for prescribing medical cannabinoids in primary care includes sedation, feeling high, dizziness, speech disorders, muscle twitching, hypotension, and several other conditions among the potential hazards of the drug. 

But the potential for long-term harm is uncertain. “All the evidence comes from people who have been using it for recreational reasons,” where there may be co-use of tobacco, self-reported outcomes, and recall bias, she said. The characteristics of people using cannabis recreationally often differ from those using it medicinally.
 

Use With Other Controlled Substances

Dr. Grossman said clinicians should consider whether the co-use of cannabis and other controlled substances, such as benzodiazepines, opioids, or Adderall, raises the potential risks associated with those drugs. “Ultimately it comes down to talking to your patients,” she said. If a toxicity screen shows the presence of controlled substances, ask about their experience with the drugs they are using and let them know your main concern is their safety.

Dr. Grossman reported no relevant financial conflicts of interest.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

The utility of cannabinoids to treat most medical conditions remains uncertain at best, but for at least three indications the data lean in favor of effectiveness, Ellie Grossman, MD, MPH, told attendees recently at the 2024 American College of Physicians Internal Medicine meeting.

Those are neuropathic pain, chemotherapy-induced nausea or vomiting, and spasticity in people with multiple sclerosis, said Dr. Grossman, an instructor at Harvard Medical School in Boston and medical director for primary care/behavioral health integration at Cambridge Health Alliance in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Dearth of Research Persists

Research is sorely lacking and of low quality in the field for many reasons, Dr. Grossman said. Most of the products tested come from outside the United States and often are synthetic and taken orally — which does not match the real-world use when patients go to dispensaries for cannabis derived directly from plants (or the plant product itself). And studies often rely on self-report.

Chronic pain is by far the top reason patients say they use medical cannabis, Dr. Grossman said. A Cochrane review of 16 studies found only that the potential benefits of cannabis may outweigh the potential harms for chronic neuropathic pain.
 

No Evidence in OUD

Dr. Grossman said she is frequently asked if cannabis can help people quit taking opioids. The answer seems to be no. A study published earlier this year in states with legalized medical or recreational cannabis found no difference between rates of opioid overdose compared with states with no such laws. “It seems like it doesn’t do anything to help us with our opioid problem,” she said.

Nor does high-quality evidence exist showing use of cannabis can improve sleep, she said. A 2022 systematic review found fewer than half of studies showed the substance useful for sleep outcomes. “Where studies were positives, it was in people who had chronic pain,” Dr. Grossman noted. Research indicates cannabis may have substantial benefit for chronic pain compared with placebo.
 

Potential Harms

If the medical benefits of cannabis are murky, the evidence for its potential harms, at least in the short term, are clearer, according to Dr. Grossman. A simplified guideline for prescribing medical cannabinoids in primary care includes sedation, feeling high, dizziness, speech disorders, muscle twitching, hypotension, and several other conditions among the potential hazards of the drug. 

But the potential for long-term harm is uncertain. “All the evidence comes from people who have been using it for recreational reasons,” where there may be co-use of tobacco, self-reported outcomes, and recall bias, she said. The characteristics of people using cannabis recreationally often differ from those using it medicinally.
 

Use With Other Controlled Substances

Dr. Grossman said clinicians should consider whether the co-use of cannabis and other controlled substances, such as benzodiazepines, opioids, or Adderall, raises the potential risks associated with those drugs. “Ultimately it comes down to talking to your patients,” she said. If a toxicity screen shows the presence of controlled substances, ask about their experience with the drugs they are using and let them know your main concern is their safety.

Dr. Grossman reported no relevant financial conflicts of interest.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

Immunization with inactivated vaccines while receiving the natalizumab for highly active multiple sclerosis (MS) is safe and immunogenic, with no increased risk for disease progression, new research shows. 

The study, the first to examine vaccine safety and immunogenicity in highly active MS, revealed high seroprotection rates following receipt of vaccines for COVID-19 and hepatitis A and B, regardless of the duration of treatment with natalizumab.

On the basis of these findings, investigators created an algorithm that clinicians can use to map an immunization schedule in patients who might otherwise delay initiation of disease-modifying therapy until they are fully vaccinated.

“We observed seroprotection rates exceeding 90% for hepatitis A and B, and mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, and all vaccines demonstrated a favorable safety profile, with no exacerbation of disease activity detected,” said lead author René Carvajal, MD, of the Department of Neurology-Neuroimmunology, Multiple Sclerosis Centre of Catalonia (Cemcat), Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. “This points to potential benefits for patients with highly active MS who require both immunization and high-efficacy therapies that may impact vaccine responses.” 

The study was published online in JAMA Network Open.
 

A Controversial Issue

Today’s high-efficacy therapies for MS may increase the risk of acquiring new infections, reactivate latent pathogens, or worsen ongoing infectious conditions, and immunogenicity of vaccination can be compromised by immunosuppressive agents, particularly CD20 therapies, researchers noted.

As a result, many clinicians opt to delay initiation of such therapies until vaccination schedules are complete to avoid exposure to vaccine-preventable infections. But delaying treatment can potentially affect disease progression. 

Reports of disease worsening following vaccination “have raised controversy around vaccine safety,” the authors wrote. The issue is especially relevant to those with highly active MS due to the scarcity of available data in this population.

The motivation for the study “stemmed from the complex balance clinicians face between initiating highly effective therapies promptly in patients with highly active MS and ensuring adequate protection against preventable infections through vaccination,” Dr. Carvajal said.
 

High Seroprotection Rate

Researchers analyzed data on 60 patients (mean age, 43 years; 44 female; mean disease duration, 17 years) participating in one of two prospectively followed cohorts: The Barcelona Clinically Isolated Syndromes Inception Cohort and the Barcelona Treatment Cohort. Data included demographic, clinical, radiologic, and biological data as well as regular clinical assessments, evaluations of the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), and MRI scans.

Patients enrolled in the current study had received at least one of these vaccines between September 2016 and February 2022: hepatitis A virus (HAV), hepatitis B virus (HBV; enhanced immunity high load or adjuvanted), or COVID-19 (BNT162b2 [Pfizer-BioNTech], mRAN-1273 [Moderna], or ChAdOx1-S [recombinant; AstraZeneca]).

The researchers conducted a retrospective, self-controlled analysis to compare the annualized relapse rate, EDSS score, and new T2 lesions counts during the 12 months before and after vaccination in patients with short- and long-term treatment duration.

They also compared John Cunningham virus serostatus between the two periods, as well as immunoglobulin G titers for each vaccine.

The global seroprotection rate was 93% (95% CI, 86%-98%). Individual vaccine rates were 92% for HAV, 93% for HBV, and 100% for COVID-19.

There was a significant reduction between the pre- and postvaccination periods in mean relapse rates (P = .004) and median number of new T2 lesions (P  = .01).

There were no changes in EDSS scores before and after vaccinations and duration of natalizumab treatment had no impact on safety and immunogenicity.
 

‘Viable Option’

The researchers used their findings to create a proposed algorithm to inform immunization decisions in patients with highly active MS who require prompt initiation of high-efficacy disease-modifying therapy.

The algorithm is “integrated into a risk-minimization strategy tailored for patients with highly active MS, emphasizing in this case the pivotal role of natalizumab in averting treatment delays and providing adequate protection against potentially severe infections,” Dr. Carvajal said.

Participants who initiated or continued treatment with natalizumab completed their vaccination regimen without any incidents of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) or disease activity rebound following natalizumab discontinuation.

This suggests that using natalizumab for a brief duration might be a “viable option to contemplate,” the authors noted.

Commenting on the findings, Grace Gombolay, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Neurology and director of the Pediatric Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Clinic, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, said the study “demonstrates that vaccines are safe and do not trigger attacks in patients with MS on natalizumab, and that immunity — as measured by antibodies — is preserved in MS patients who receive natalizumab.”

This “contrasts with other treatments, as decreased antibody responses in COVID-19 are noted in certain treatments,” said Dr. Gombolay, who was not part of the study. “If both disease control and immunity against infection are the goals for the patient, then natalizumab is a reasonable option.” 

“However, this must be balanced with other considerations,” she added, including the risk for PML and pregnancy. 

This study was supported by grants from the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, and the European Union. Dr. Carvajal reported receiving grants from Vall d’Hebron Institut de Recerca and the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis and honoraria from Roche, Novartis, BIIB-Colombia, Merck, and Sanofi outside the submitted work. Dr. Gombolay serves as media editor for Pediatric Neurology and as associate editor of the Annals of the Child Neurology Society. She is also a part-time CDC consultant for acute flaccid myelitis and received an honorarium as a speaker at the Georgia Neurological Society meeting, sponsored by Academic CME and TG Therapeutics.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

Immunization with inactivated vaccines while receiving the natalizumab for highly active multiple sclerosis (MS) is safe and immunogenic, with no increased risk for disease progression, new research shows. 

The study, the first to examine vaccine safety and immunogenicity in highly active MS, revealed high seroprotection rates following receipt of vaccines for COVID-19 and hepatitis A and B, regardless of the duration of treatment with natalizumab.

On the basis of these findings, investigators created an algorithm that clinicians can use to map an immunization schedule in patients who might otherwise delay initiation of disease-modifying therapy until they are fully vaccinated.

“We observed seroprotection rates exceeding 90% for hepatitis A and B, and mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, and all vaccines demonstrated a favorable safety profile, with no exacerbation of disease activity detected,” said lead author René Carvajal, MD, of the Department of Neurology-Neuroimmunology, Multiple Sclerosis Centre of Catalonia (Cemcat), Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. “This points to potential benefits for patients with highly active MS who require both immunization and high-efficacy therapies that may impact vaccine responses.” 

The study was published online in JAMA Network Open.
 

A Controversial Issue

Today’s high-efficacy therapies for MS may increase the risk of acquiring new infections, reactivate latent pathogens, or worsen ongoing infectious conditions, and immunogenicity of vaccination can be compromised by immunosuppressive agents, particularly CD20 therapies, researchers noted.

As a result, many clinicians opt to delay initiation of such therapies until vaccination schedules are complete to avoid exposure to vaccine-preventable infections. But delaying treatment can potentially affect disease progression. 

Reports of disease worsening following vaccination “have raised controversy around vaccine safety,” the authors wrote. The issue is especially relevant to those with highly active MS due to the scarcity of available data in this population.

The motivation for the study “stemmed from the complex balance clinicians face between initiating highly effective therapies promptly in patients with highly active MS and ensuring adequate protection against preventable infections through vaccination,” Dr. Carvajal said.
 

High Seroprotection Rate

Researchers analyzed data on 60 patients (mean age, 43 years; 44 female; mean disease duration, 17 years) participating in one of two prospectively followed cohorts: The Barcelona Clinically Isolated Syndromes Inception Cohort and the Barcelona Treatment Cohort. Data included demographic, clinical, radiologic, and biological data as well as regular clinical assessments, evaluations of the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), and MRI scans.

Patients enrolled in the current study had received at least one of these vaccines between September 2016 and February 2022: hepatitis A virus (HAV), hepatitis B virus (HBV; enhanced immunity high load or adjuvanted), or COVID-19 (BNT162b2 [Pfizer-BioNTech], mRAN-1273 [Moderna], or ChAdOx1-S [recombinant; AstraZeneca]).

The researchers conducted a retrospective, self-controlled analysis to compare the annualized relapse rate, EDSS score, and new T2 lesions counts during the 12 months before and after vaccination in patients with short- and long-term treatment duration.

They also compared John Cunningham virus serostatus between the two periods, as well as immunoglobulin G titers for each vaccine.

The global seroprotection rate was 93% (95% CI, 86%-98%). Individual vaccine rates were 92% for HAV, 93% for HBV, and 100% for COVID-19.

There was a significant reduction between the pre- and postvaccination periods in mean relapse rates (P = .004) and median number of new T2 lesions (P  = .01).

There were no changes in EDSS scores before and after vaccinations and duration of natalizumab treatment had no impact on safety and immunogenicity.
 

‘Viable Option’

The researchers used their findings to create a proposed algorithm to inform immunization decisions in patients with highly active MS who require prompt initiation of high-efficacy disease-modifying therapy.

The algorithm is “integrated into a risk-minimization strategy tailored for patients with highly active MS, emphasizing in this case the pivotal role of natalizumab in averting treatment delays and providing adequate protection against potentially severe infections,” Dr. Carvajal said.

Participants who initiated or continued treatment with natalizumab completed their vaccination regimen without any incidents of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) or disease activity rebound following natalizumab discontinuation.

This suggests that using natalizumab for a brief duration might be a “viable option to contemplate,” the authors noted.

Commenting on the findings, Grace Gombolay, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Neurology and director of the Pediatric Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Clinic, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, said the study “demonstrates that vaccines are safe and do not trigger attacks in patients with MS on natalizumab, and that immunity — as measured by antibodies — is preserved in MS patients who receive natalizumab.”

This “contrasts with other treatments, as decreased antibody responses in COVID-19 are noted in certain treatments,” said Dr. Gombolay, who was not part of the study. “If both disease control and immunity against infection are the goals for the patient, then natalizumab is a reasonable option.” 

“However, this must be balanced with other considerations,” she added, including the risk for PML and pregnancy. 

This study was supported by grants from the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, and the European Union. Dr. Carvajal reported receiving grants from Vall d’Hebron Institut de Recerca and the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis and honoraria from Roche, Novartis, BIIB-Colombia, Merck, and Sanofi outside the submitted work. Dr. Gombolay serves as media editor for Pediatric Neurology and as associate editor of the Annals of the Child Neurology Society. She is also a part-time CDC consultant for acute flaccid myelitis and received an honorarium as a speaker at the Georgia Neurological Society meeting, sponsored by Academic CME and TG Therapeutics.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

Immunization with inactivated vaccines while receiving the natalizumab for highly active multiple sclerosis (MS) is safe and immunogenic, with no increased risk for disease progression, new research shows. 

The study, the first to examine vaccine safety and immunogenicity in highly active MS, revealed high seroprotection rates following receipt of vaccines for COVID-19 and hepatitis A and B, regardless of the duration of treatment with natalizumab.

On the basis of these findings, investigators created an algorithm that clinicians can use to map an immunization schedule in patients who might otherwise delay initiation of disease-modifying therapy until they are fully vaccinated.

“We observed seroprotection rates exceeding 90% for hepatitis A and B, and mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, and all vaccines demonstrated a favorable safety profile, with no exacerbation of disease activity detected,” said lead author René Carvajal, MD, of the Department of Neurology-Neuroimmunology, Multiple Sclerosis Centre of Catalonia (Cemcat), Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. “This points to potential benefits for patients with highly active MS who require both immunization and high-efficacy therapies that may impact vaccine responses.” 

The study was published online in JAMA Network Open.
 

A Controversial Issue

Today’s high-efficacy therapies for MS may increase the risk of acquiring new infections, reactivate latent pathogens, or worsen ongoing infectious conditions, and immunogenicity of vaccination can be compromised by immunosuppressive agents, particularly CD20 therapies, researchers noted.

As a result, many clinicians opt to delay initiation of such therapies until vaccination schedules are complete to avoid exposure to vaccine-preventable infections. But delaying treatment can potentially affect disease progression. 

Reports of disease worsening following vaccination “have raised controversy around vaccine safety,” the authors wrote. The issue is especially relevant to those with highly active MS due to the scarcity of available data in this population.

The motivation for the study “stemmed from the complex balance clinicians face between initiating highly effective therapies promptly in patients with highly active MS and ensuring adequate protection against preventable infections through vaccination,” Dr. Carvajal said.
 

High Seroprotection Rate

Researchers analyzed data on 60 patients (mean age, 43 years; 44 female; mean disease duration, 17 years) participating in one of two prospectively followed cohorts: The Barcelona Clinically Isolated Syndromes Inception Cohort and the Barcelona Treatment Cohort. Data included demographic, clinical, radiologic, and biological data as well as regular clinical assessments, evaluations of the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), and MRI scans.

Patients enrolled in the current study had received at least one of these vaccines between September 2016 and February 2022: hepatitis A virus (HAV), hepatitis B virus (HBV; enhanced immunity high load or adjuvanted), or COVID-19 (BNT162b2 [Pfizer-BioNTech], mRAN-1273 [Moderna], or ChAdOx1-S [recombinant; AstraZeneca]).

The researchers conducted a retrospective, self-controlled analysis to compare the annualized relapse rate, EDSS score, and new T2 lesions counts during the 12 months before and after vaccination in patients with short- and long-term treatment duration.

They also compared John Cunningham virus serostatus between the two periods, as well as immunoglobulin G titers for each vaccine.

The global seroprotection rate was 93% (95% CI, 86%-98%). Individual vaccine rates were 92% for HAV, 93% for HBV, and 100% for COVID-19.

There was a significant reduction between the pre- and postvaccination periods in mean relapse rates (P = .004) and median number of new T2 lesions (P  = .01).

There were no changes in EDSS scores before and after vaccinations and duration of natalizumab treatment had no impact on safety and immunogenicity.
 

‘Viable Option’

The researchers used their findings to create a proposed algorithm to inform immunization decisions in patients with highly active MS who require prompt initiation of high-efficacy disease-modifying therapy.

The algorithm is “integrated into a risk-minimization strategy tailored for patients with highly active MS, emphasizing in this case the pivotal role of natalizumab in averting treatment delays and providing adequate protection against potentially severe infections,” Dr. Carvajal said.

Participants who initiated or continued treatment with natalizumab completed their vaccination regimen without any incidents of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) or disease activity rebound following natalizumab discontinuation.

This suggests that using natalizumab for a brief duration might be a “viable option to contemplate,” the authors noted.

Commenting on the findings, Grace Gombolay, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Neurology and director of the Pediatric Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Clinic, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, said the study “demonstrates that vaccines are safe and do not trigger attacks in patients with MS on natalizumab, and that immunity — as measured by antibodies — is preserved in MS patients who receive natalizumab.”

This “contrasts with other treatments, as decreased antibody responses in COVID-19 are noted in certain treatments,” said Dr. Gombolay, who was not part of the study. “If both disease control and immunity against infection are the goals for the patient, then natalizumab is a reasonable option.” 

“However, this must be balanced with other considerations,” she added, including the risk for PML and pregnancy. 

This study was supported by grants from the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, and the European Union. Dr. Carvajal reported receiving grants from Vall d’Hebron Institut de Recerca and the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis and honoraria from Roche, Novartis, BIIB-Colombia, Merck, and Sanofi outside the submitted work. Dr. Gombolay serves as media editor for Pediatric Neurology and as associate editor of the Annals of the Child Neurology Society. She is also a part-time CDC consultant for acute flaccid myelitis and received an honorarium as a speaker at the Georgia Neurological Society meeting, sponsored by Academic CME and TG Therapeutics.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

DENVER — Patients with pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (POMS) are often prescribed low-efficacy disease-modifying therapies (DMTs), but a new retrospective analysis suggests that, like adults, this patient population may benefit from early treatment with high-efficacy DMTs.

“I think it’s very important to highlight that we are seeing that traditionally, kids are just started on lower-efficacy treatments and they keep relapsing. If we can show that when they get transitioned to high-efficacy treatments, the relapses are lessening, I’m hoping that can then push for better clinical trials with pediatric patients included,” said Frederick Bassal, DO, who presented the study during a poster session at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology. He is a pediatric neurologist at University of California, Davis.

The first line for POMS is generally low-efficacy DMTs like interferon-beta and glatiramer acetate, but these medications may not effectively control disease progression, according to the study authors, and this could lead to pediatric patients being changed to more potent therapies. That can include moderate-efficacy drugs like S1P inhibitors and fumarates, or high-efficacy DMTS such as B cell depletors and alpha 4 integrin receptor antibodies.
 

Treatment Strategies

“Right now what we’re seeing is the conservative approach — starting low and working up with the younger and adolescent patients. I’m speculating, and I want to look more into it. Is [it maybe] because of insurance approval?” said study coauthor Amara Miller, a medical student at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix.

The findings aren’t surprising, according to Barbara Giesser, MD, who was asked to comment on the study. “It is in line with what we think we know about people with adult MS — that if you start early on with a more effective therapy, you tend to have better outcomes,” said Dr. Giesser, director of the MS program at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute.

Another reason to consider higher-efficacy DMTs is that children with MS can have cognitive problems and delays. “There’s a suggestion that if you treat with highly-effective DMT that you might be able to abrogate some of that,” said Dr. Giesser.

Among the approximately two dozen FDA-approved disease-modifying therapies for MS, only fingolimod (Gilenya, Novartis) is approved for children and adolescents. “All of the others are used off label, but I think perhaps, if you have more studies that [show] that children do better if you treat with more effective therapies early on, perhaps we might see more on-label indications for use in a pediatric population,” said Dr. Giesser.

The finding that obesity was associated with a higher likelihood of having multiple therapies is also interesting, she said. “We’re beginning to see that obesity in adults as well seems to portend less favorable neurologic outcomes.”
 

Study Methodology

The researchers analyzed data from 135 POMS patients between 2012 and 2023.

The mean age of participants was 15 years, 60% were female, and 120 of 135 were White, while 76 were of Hispanic ethnicity. Overweight and obesity were common, with 36 and 43 participants in each category. The initial therapy was a low-efficacy DMT in 23.0% of participants, moderate-efficacy in 37.0%, and high-efficacy in 24.4%, while 1.5% received some other kind of medication and 14.1% received no medication. The annualized relapse rate was 0.932, and the mean EDSS score was 0.88.

Patients who underwent three or medication changes had lower EDSS scores than those who underwent zero to 2 (P = .00607).

Over the course of the study, the percentage of patients who received high-efficacy DMTs rose from 25.9% to 48.9%, largely due to changes in medication. Of those initially prescribed low-efficacy DMTs, 77.4% were eventually switched to high-efficacy DMTs.

Every patient who underwent three or more medication changes was initially prescribed a low-efficacy DMT.

Patients started on low-efficacy drugs had a mean of 1.42 medication changes, compared with 0.94 in the moderate-efficacy group and 0.51 in the high-efficacy group. The reasons for changing from the first medication included relapse (36), side effects (11), patient choice or compliance (8), and pregnancy (2).

Patients 10 years or younger were more likely to be initially prescribed a low-efficacy therapy (odds ratio [OR], 5.72; P = .0366), while older patients were more likely to be prescribed moderate- or high-efficacy therapies (OR, 14.44; P = .0012).

There were more total medication changes in the low-efficacy group than the high initial DMT group (P = .000305).

Asked what advice they would give to physicians treating POMS patients, Ms. Miller suggested a top-down approach. “We want to look at if maybe we can start with higher efficacy DMT’s and maybe titering it down. That may be an option,” said Ms. Miller.

Dr. Bassal highlighted the importance of shared decision-making. “We want to go over the options, that we recommend higher-efficacy [DMTs] for these reasons. But every individual is different. And there may be fears that are very reasonable that families have. I think in those cases, it’s also reasonable to make a shared decision. And if that means going with something like an oral, moderate- to lower-efficacy [therapy], that’s okay, because compliance is key, and if you start something where the family is afraid of side effects, or there are side effects, then you kind of lost that opportunity,” he said.

Dr. Bassal, Dr. Giesser, and Ms. Miller have no relevant financial disclosures.

DENVER — Patients with pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (POMS) are often prescribed low-efficacy disease-modifying therapies (DMTs), but a new retrospective analysis suggests that, like adults, this patient population may benefit from early treatment with high-efficacy DMTs.

“I think it’s very important to highlight that we are seeing that traditionally, kids are just started on lower-efficacy treatments and they keep relapsing. If we can show that when they get transitioned to high-efficacy treatments, the relapses are lessening, I’m hoping that can then push for better clinical trials with pediatric patients included,” said Frederick Bassal, DO, who presented the study during a poster session at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology. He is a pediatric neurologist at University of California, Davis.

The first line for POMS is generally low-efficacy DMTs like interferon-beta and glatiramer acetate, but these medications may not effectively control disease progression, according to the study authors, and this could lead to pediatric patients being changed to more potent therapies. That can include moderate-efficacy drugs like S1P inhibitors and fumarates, or high-efficacy DMTS such as B cell depletors and alpha 4 integrin receptor antibodies.
 

Treatment Strategies

“Right now what we’re seeing is the conservative approach — starting low and working up with the younger and adolescent patients. I’m speculating, and I want to look more into it. Is [it maybe] because of insurance approval?” said study coauthor Amara Miller, a medical student at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix.

The findings aren’t surprising, according to Barbara Giesser, MD, who was asked to comment on the study. “It is in line with what we think we know about people with adult MS — that if you start early on with a more effective therapy, you tend to have better outcomes,” said Dr. Giesser, director of the MS program at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute.

Another reason to consider higher-efficacy DMTs is that children with MS can have cognitive problems and delays. “There’s a suggestion that if you treat with highly-effective DMT that you might be able to abrogate some of that,” said Dr. Giesser.

Among the approximately two dozen FDA-approved disease-modifying therapies for MS, only fingolimod (Gilenya, Novartis) is approved for children and adolescents. “All of the others are used off label, but I think perhaps, if you have more studies that [show] that children do better if you treat with more effective therapies early on, perhaps we might see more on-label indications for use in a pediatric population,” said Dr. Giesser.

The finding that obesity was associated with a higher likelihood of having multiple therapies is also interesting, she said. “We’re beginning to see that obesity in adults as well seems to portend less favorable neurologic outcomes.”
 

Study Methodology

The researchers analyzed data from 135 POMS patients between 2012 and 2023.

The mean age of participants was 15 years, 60% were female, and 120 of 135 were White, while 76 were of Hispanic ethnicity. Overweight and obesity were common, with 36 and 43 participants in each category. The initial therapy was a low-efficacy DMT in 23.0% of participants, moderate-efficacy in 37.0%, and high-efficacy in 24.4%, while 1.5% received some other kind of medication and 14.1% received no medication. The annualized relapse rate was 0.932, and the mean EDSS score was 0.88.

Patients who underwent three or medication changes had lower EDSS scores than those who underwent zero to 2 (P = .00607).

Over the course of the study, the percentage of patients who received high-efficacy DMTs rose from 25.9% to 48.9%, largely due to changes in medication. Of those initially prescribed low-efficacy DMTs, 77.4% were eventually switched to high-efficacy DMTs.

Every patient who underwent three or more medication changes was initially prescribed a low-efficacy DMT.

Patients started on low-efficacy drugs had a mean of 1.42 medication changes, compared with 0.94 in the moderate-efficacy group and 0.51 in the high-efficacy group. The reasons for changing from the first medication included relapse (36), side effects (11), patient choice or compliance (8), and pregnancy (2).

Patients 10 years or younger were more likely to be initially prescribed a low-efficacy therapy (odds ratio [OR], 5.72; P = .0366), while older patients were more likely to be prescribed moderate- or high-efficacy therapies (OR, 14.44; P = .0012).

There were more total medication changes in the low-efficacy group than the high initial DMT group (P = .000305).

Asked what advice they would give to physicians treating POMS patients, Ms. Miller suggested a top-down approach. “We want to look at if maybe we can start with higher efficacy DMT’s and maybe titering it down. That may be an option,” said Ms. Miller.

Dr. Bassal highlighted the importance of shared decision-making. “We want to go over the options, that we recommend higher-efficacy [DMTs] for these reasons. But every individual is different. And there may be fears that are very reasonable that families have. I think in those cases, it’s also reasonable to make a shared decision. And if that means going with something like an oral, moderate- to lower-efficacy [therapy], that’s okay, because compliance is key, and if you start something where the family is afraid of side effects, or there are side effects, then you kind of lost that opportunity,” he said.

Dr. Bassal, Dr. Giesser, and Ms. Miller have no relevant financial disclosures.

DENVER — Patients with pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (POMS) are often prescribed low-efficacy disease-modifying therapies (DMTs), but a new retrospective analysis suggests that, like adults, this patient population may benefit from early treatment with high-efficacy DMTs.

“I think it’s very important to highlight that we are seeing that traditionally, kids are just started on lower-efficacy treatments and they keep relapsing. If we can show that when they get transitioned to high-efficacy treatments, the relapses are lessening, I’m hoping that can then push for better clinical trials with pediatric patients included,” said Frederick Bassal, DO, who presented the study during a poster session at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology. He is a pediatric neurologist at University of California, Davis.

The first line for POMS is generally low-efficacy DMTs like interferon-beta and glatiramer acetate, but these medications may not effectively control disease progression, according to the study authors, and this could lead to pediatric patients being changed to more potent therapies. That can include moderate-efficacy drugs like S1P inhibitors and fumarates, or high-efficacy DMTS such as B cell depletors and alpha 4 integrin receptor antibodies.
 

Treatment Strategies

“Right now what we’re seeing is the conservative approach — starting low and working up with the younger and adolescent patients. I’m speculating, and I want to look more into it. Is [it maybe] because of insurance approval?” said study coauthor Amara Miller, a medical student at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix.

The findings aren’t surprising, according to Barbara Giesser, MD, who was asked to comment on the study. “It is in line with what we think we know about people with adult MS — that if you start early on with a more effective therapy, you tend to have better outcomes,” said Dr. Giesser, director of the MS program at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute.

Another reason to consider higher-efficacy DMTs is that children with MS can have cognitive problems and delays. “There’s a suggestion that if you treat with highly-effective DMT that you might be able to abrogate some of that,” said Dr. Giesser.

Among the approximately two dozen FDA-approved disease-modifying therapies for MS, only fingolimod (Gilenya, Novartis) is approved for children and adolescents. “All of the others are used off label, but I think perhaps, if you have more studies that [show] that children do better if you treat with more effective therapies early on, perhaps we might see more on-label indications for use in a pediatric population,” said Dr. Giesser.

The finding that obesity was associated with a higher likelihood of having multiple therapies is also interesting, she said. “We’re beginning to see that obesity in adults as well seems to portend less favorable neurologic outcomes.”
 

Study Methodology

The researchers analyzed data from 135 POMS patients between 2012 and 2023.

The mean age of participants was 15 years, 60% were female, and 120 of 135 were White, while 76 were of Hispanic ethnicity. Overweight and obesity were common, with 36 and 43 participants in each category. The initial therapy was a low-efficacy DMT in 23.0% of participants, moderate-efficacy in 37.0%, and high-efficacy in 24.4%, while 1.5% received some other kind of medication and 14.1% received no medication. The annualized relapse rate was 0.932, and the mean EDSS score was 0.88.

Patients who underwent three or medication changes had lower EDSS scores than those who underwent zero to 2 (P = .00607).

Over the course of the study, the percentage of patients who received high-efficacy DMTs rose from 25.9% to 48.9%, largely due to changes in medication. Of those initially prescribed low-efficacy DMTs, 77.4% were eventually switched to high-efficacy DMTs.

Every patient who underwent three or more medication changes was initially prescribed a low-efficacy DMT.

Patients started on low-efficacy drugs had a mean of 1.42 medication changes, compared with 0.94 in the moderate-efficacy group and 0.51 in the high-efficacy group. The reasons for changing from the first medication included relapse (36), side effects (11), patient choice or compliance (8), and pregnancy (2).

Patients 10 years or younger were more likely to be initially prescribed a low-efficacy therapy (odds ratio [OR], 5.72; P = .0366), while older patients were more likely to be prescribed moderate- or high-efficacy therapies (OR, 14.44; P = .0012).

There were more total medication changes in the low-efficacy group than the high initial DMT group (P = .000305).

Asked what advice they would give to physicians treating POMS patients, Ms. Miller suggested a top-down approach. “We want to look at if maybe we can start with higher efficacy DMT’s and maybe titering it down. That may be an option,” said Ms. Miller.

Dr. Bassal highlighted the importance of shared decision-making. “We want to go over the options, that we recommend higher-efficacy [DMTs] for these reasons. But every individual is different. And there may be fears that are very reasonable that families have. I think in those cases, it’s also reasonable to make a shared decision. And if that means going with something like an oral, moderate- to lower-efficacy [therapy], that’s okay, because compliance is key, and if you start something where the family is afraid of side effects, or there are side effects, then you kind of lost that opportunity,” he said.

Dr. Bassal, Dr. Giesser, and Ms. Miller have no relevant financial disclosures.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) has three distinct subtypes based on immune markers in patient’s blood, each with slightly different disease trajectories and responses to therapy, a new study suggests.

With further validation, determining a patient’s blood “immune signature,” or endophenotype, before starting immunomodulatory therapy may help predict clinical disease trajectories and lead to more personalized treatment decisions, investigators said.

“The characterization of an endophenotype at timepoints of diagnosis will help to determine likely trajectory of the disease course but also will help to refine the chosen immune therapy,” said Heinz Wiendl, MD, professor and chair, Department of Neurology, University of Münster, Germany. “This is a rationale way of precision medicine for the future.”

The study was published online in Science Translational Medicine.
 

Degenerative and Inflammatory Subtypes

MS is a highly heterogeneous disorder with different clinical manifestations and disease trajectories, making it a challenge to manage. Whether this heterogeneity is reflected by discrete immune signatures in the blood has been unclear.

To investigate, Dr. Wiendl and a multicenter team comprehensively analyzed the immunological properties of blood samples collected from 309 patients with early MS and an independent validation cohort of 232 patients with early MS.

In both cohorts, they found that cellular immune signatures split into three distinct immunological endophenotypes, dubbed E1, E2, and E3.

E1 is characterized by alterations in the CD4 T-cell compartment, with increases in inflammatory cytokines, namely interleukin-17A (IL-17A), IL-22, and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, as well as earlier structural brain damage, more severe disease, and higher disability.

Alterations in natural killer cells are a hallmark of the E2 subtype, while alterations in the CD8 T cells dominate the E3 subtype.

The different subtypes were associated with distinct clinical disease trajectories. E3 patients displayed a pattern reflecting higher inflammatory disease activity, as illustrated by a higher relapse rate (≥ 2) within the first year from baseline and more frequent use of highly active disease-modifying therapies as first immunomodulatory treatment.

E3 patients also had higher numbers of gadolinium-enhancing lesions at baseline, a higher conversion rate from clinically isolated syndrome to relapsing-remitting MS, and rapid disability accrual within 2 years after baseline.

This endophenotype was also associated with an increase in total cell numbers within the cerebrospinal fluid and intrathecal immunoglobulin (Ig) G synthesis at baseline.

E1 patients had a higher degree of early structural brain damage and disease severity, including disability and impaired evident at baseline, and increased serum neurofilament light and increased intrathecal IgM synthesis at baseline.

“According to these different patterns of disease trajectories, we therefore termed these subsets degenerative E1 and inflammatory E3. Overall, although some of the clinical and paraclinical parameters partially overlapped, our analysis reveals that distinct immunological endophenotypes might have predictive value with regard to clinically relevant disease trajectories,” the researchers wrote.
 

Toward Personalized Care

In addition, during up to 4-year follow-up of some patients, they observed that patients with the inflammatory E3 endophenotype treated with interferon-beta exhibited higher disease progression and MRI activity relative to E3 patients receiving other therapies. These differential effects of interferon-beta were not observed in the other endophenotypes.

With further study and refinement, the hope is to make this test a “clinical reality,” Dr. Wiendl said.

Commenting on the findings, Kimberly O’Neill, MD, clinical instructor, Department of Neurology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York City, noted that people with MS can have “a broad variety of disease course and outcomes ranging from mild to a very severe and life-altering disease course. At this point, we are not great at predicting who is going to be on which path and also which medication is right for each patient.

“Research like this gives us hope for a more personalized precision medicine in MS,” said Dr. O’Neill, who was not part of the study. “The ideal world would be to have a blood test that could tell their disease course and which treatments will work for an individual patient, but we are certainly not there yet.”

Also providing an outside perspective, Mary Rensel, MD, director of wellness and pediatric MS at the Cleveland Clinic Mellen Center for MS, Cleveland, said, “Precision medicine is our goal and dream in MS care — to be able to do a blood test and know what medicine a patient may or may not respond to and save them years of ongoing symptoms or the risk of disability. This study is a great start.”

Support for this research was provided by grants from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the German Research Council, and the Hermann and Lilly Schilling Foundation. Disclosures for study authors are listed with the original article. Dr. O’Neill and Dr. Rensel had no relevant disclosures.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) has three distinct subtypes based on immune markers in patient’s blood, each with slightly different disease trajectories and responses to therapy, a new study suggests.

With further validation, determining a patient’s blood “immune signature,” or endophenotype, before starting immunomodulatory therapy may help predict clinical disease trajectories and lead to more personalized treatment decisions, investigators said.

“The characterization of an endophenotype at timepoints of diagnosis will help to determine likely trajectory of the disease course but also will help to refine the chosen immune therapy,” said Heinz Wiendl, MD, professor and chair, Department of Neurology, University of Münster, Germany. “This is a rationale way of precision medicine for the future.”

The study was published online in Science Translational Medicine.
 

Degenerative and Inflammatory Subtypes

MS is a highly heterogeneous disorder with different clinical manifestations and disease trajectories, making it a challenge to manage. Whether this heterogeneity is reflected by discrete immune signatures in the blood has been unclear.

To investigate, Dr. Wiendl and a multicenter team comprehensively analyzed the immunological properties of blood samples collected from 309 patients with early MS and an independent validation cohort of 232 patients with early MS.

In both cohorts, they found that cellular immune signatures split into three distinct immunological endophenotypes, dubbed E1, E2, and E3.

E1 is characterized by alterations in the CD4 T-cell compartment, with increases in inflammatory cytokines, namely interleukin-17A (IL-17A), IL-22, and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, as well as earlier structural brain damage, more severe disease, and higher disability.

Alterations in natural killer cells are a hallmark of the E2 subtype, while alterations in the CD8 T cells dominate the E3 subtype.

The different subtypes were associated with distinct clinical disease trajectories. E3 patients displayed a pattern reflecting higher inflammatory disease activity, as illustrated by a higher relapse rate (≥ 2) within the first year from baseline and more frequent use of highly active disease-modifying therapies as first immunomodulatory treatment.

E3 patients also had higher numbers of gadolinium-enhancing lesions at baseline, a higher conversion rate from clinically isolated syndrome to relapsing-remitting MS, and rapid disability accrual within 2 years after baseline.

This endophenotype was also associated with an increase in total cell numbers within the cerebrospinal fluid and intrathecal immunoglobulin (Ig) G synthesis at baseline.

E1 patients had a higher degree of early structural brain damage and disease severity, including disability and impaired evident at baseline, and increased serum neurofilament light and increased intrathecal IgM synthesis at baseline.

“According to these different patterns of disease trajectories, we therefore termed these subsets degenerative E1 and inflammatory E3. Overall, although some of the clinical and paraclinical parameters partially overlapped, our analysis reveals that distinct immunological endophenotypes might have predictive value with regard to clinically relevant disease trajectories,” the researchers wrote.
 

Toward Personalized Care

In addition, during up to 4-year follow-up of some patients, they observed that patients with the inflammatory E3 endophenotype treated with interferon-beta exhibited higher disease progression and MRI activity relative to E3 patients receiving other therapies. These differential effects of interferon-beta were not observed in the other endophenotypes.

With further study and refinement, the hope is to make this test a “clinical reality,” Dr. Wiendl said.

Commenting on the findings, Kimberly O’Neill, MD, clinical instructor, Department of Neurology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York City, noted that people with MS can have “a broad variety of disease course and outcomes ranging from mild to a very severe and life-altering disease course. At this point, we are not great at predicting who is going to be on which path and also which medication is right for each patient.

“Research like this gives us hope for a more personalized precision medicine in MS,” said Dr. O’Neill, who was not part of the study. “The ideal world would be to have a blood test that could tell their disease course and which treatments will work for an individual patient, but we are certainly not there yet.”

Also providing an outside perspective, Mary Rensel, MD, director of wellness and pediatric MS at the Cleveland Clinic Mellen Center for MS, Cleveland, said, “Precision medicine is our goal and dream in MS care — to be able to do a blood test and know what medicine a patient may or may not respond to and save them years of ongoing symptoms or the risk of disability. This study is a great start.”

Support for this research was provided by grants from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the German Research Council, and the Hermann and Lilly Schilling Foundation. Disclosures for study authors are listed with the original article. Dr. O’Neill and Dr. Rensel had no relevant disclosures.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) has three distinct subtypes based on immune markers in patient’s blood, each with slightly different disease trajectories and responses to therapy, a new study suggests.

With further validation, determining a patient’s blood “immune signature,” or endophenotype, before starting immunomodulatory therapy may help predict clinical disease trajectories and lead to more personalized treatment decisions, investigators said.

“The characterization of an endophenotype at timepoints of diagnosis will help to determine likely trajectory of the disease course but also will help to refine the chosen immune therapy,” said Heinz Wiendl, MD, professor and chair, Department of Neurology, University of Münster, Germany. “This is a rationale way of precision medicine for the future.”

The study was published online in Science Translational Medicine.
 

Degenerative and Inflammatory Subtypes

MS is a highly heterogeneous disorder with different clinical manifestations and disease trajectories, making it a challenge to manage. Whether this heterogeneity is reflected by discrete immune signatures in the blood has been unclear.

To investigate, Dr. Wiendl and a multicenter team comprehensively analyzed the immunological properties of blood samples collected from 309 patients with early MS and an independent validation cohort of 232 patients with early MS.

In both cohorts, they found that cellular immune signatures split into three distinct immunological endophenotypes, dubbed E1, E2, and E3.

E1 is characterized by alterations in the CD4 T-cell compartment, with increases in inflammatory cytokines, namely interleukin-17A (IL-17A), IL-22, and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, as well as earlier structural brain damage, more severe disease, and higher disability.

Alterations in natural killer cells are a hallmark of the E2 subtype, while alterations in the CD8 T cells dominate the E3 subtype.

The different subtypes were associated with distinct clinical disease trajectories. E3 patients displayed a pattern reflecting higher inflammatory disease activity, as illustrated by a higher relapse rate (≥ 2) within the first year from baseline and more frequent use of highly active disease-modifying therapies as first immunomodulatory treatment.

E3 patients also had higher numbers of gadolinium-enhancing lesions at baseline, a higher conversion rate from clinically isolated syndrome to relapsing-remitting MS, and rapid disability accrual within 2 years after baseline.

This endophenotype was also associated with an increase in total cell numbers within the cerebrospinal fluid and intrathecal immunoglobulin (Ig) G synthesis at baseline.

E1 patients had a higher degree of early structural brain damage and disease severity, including disability and impaired evident at baseline, and increased serum neurofilament light and increased intrathecal IgM synthesis at baseline.

“According to these different patterns of disease trajectories, we therefore termed these subsets degenerative E1 and inflammatory E3. Overall, although some of the clinical and paraclinical parameters partially overlapped, our analysis reveals that distinct immunological endophenotypes might have predictive value with regard to clinically relevant disease trajectories,” the researchers wrote.
 

Toward Personalized Care

In addition, during up to 4-year follow-up of some patients, they observed that patients with the inflammatory E3 endophenotype treated with interferon-beta exhibited higher disease progression and MRI activity relative to E3 patients receiving other therapies. These differential effects of interferon-beta were not observed in the other endophenotypes.

With further study and refinement, the hope is to make this test a “clinical reality,” Dr. Wiendl said.

Commenting on the findings, Kimberly O’Neill, MD, clinical instructor, Department of Neurology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York City, noted that people with MS can have “a broad variety of disease course and outcomes ranging from mild to a very severe and life-altering disease course. At this point, we are not great at predicting who is going to be on which path and also which medication is right for each patient.

“Research like this gives us hope for a more personalized precision medicine in MS,” said Dr. O’Neill, who was not part of the study. “The ideal world would be to have a blood test that could tell their disease course and which treatments will work for an individual patient, but we are certainly not there yet.”

Also providing an outside perspective, Mary Rensel, MD, director of wellness and pediatric MS at the Cleveland Clinic Mellen Center for MS, Cleveland, said, “Precision medicine is our goal and dream in MS care — to be able to do a blood test and know what medicine a patient may or may not respond to and save them years of ongoing symptoms or the risk of disability. This study is a great start.”

Support for this research was provided by grants from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the German Research Council, and the Hermann and Lilly Schilling Foundation. Disclosures for study authors are listed with the original article. Dr. O’Neill and Dr. Rensel had no relevant disclosures.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is our constant companion, infecting an estimated 90%-95% of adults. Many of us are first infected as children, when the germ may trigger cold and flu symptoms. EBV also causes mononucleosis, or kissing disease, a glandular fever that has afflicted generations of amorous young people.

Post infection, EBV settles in for the long haul and remains in the body until death. It’s thought to be largely innocuous, but EBV is now implicated as a cause of several types of cancer — including lymphoma and nasopharyngeal tumors – and multiple sclerosis (MS). In 2022, a landmark study in Science suggested that previous EBV infection is the primary cause of MS.

While there aren’t many implications for current treatment, greater insight into the origin story of MS may eventually help neurologists better diagnose and treat patients, experts said. The goal is to uncover clues that “can help us understand MS a little bit better and reveal insights that could lead to new disease-modifying therapy,” Bruce Bebo, PhD, executive vice president of research with the National MS Society, said in an interview.
 

EBV Boosts MS Risk 32-Fold

EBV was first linked to MS back in 1981. For the 2022 study, researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, Boston, analyzed blood serum from 10 million active-duty members of the US military. They focused on 801 recruits with MS and matched them with more than 1500 controls. All but one of those with MS had been infected with EBV; infection appeared to boost the risk for MS 32-fold (95% CI, 4.3-245.3; P < .001).

Neurologist and associate professor Michael Levy, MD, PhD, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, said in an interview that the findings are “groundbreaking” and confirm that EBV is “likely the primary cause of MS.”

According to Dr. Levy, there are two main theories about why EBV causes MS. The first hypothesis, known as the “molecular mimicry” theory, suggests that “EBV is a trigger of MS, possibly when the immune system mistakes a viral protein for a myelin protein and then attacks myelin,” Dr. Levy said. In MS, the immune system attacks the protective myelin sheath and the axons it insulates.

“After that point, the virus is not necessary to maintain the disease state and eradicating the virus likely won’t have much effect since the immune response is already triggered,” he said.

The second theory is that “EBV is a driver of MS where there is an ongoing, lifelong immunological response to EBV that continuously causes damage in the central nervous system [CNS]. In theory, if we could eradicate the virus, the destructive immune response could also resolve. Thus, an EBV antiviral treatment could potentially treat and maybe cure MS,” Dr. Levy explained, noting that “removing the pathogenic antigen may be a more effective strategy than removing the immune response.”

However, “we don’t yet know which hypothesis is correct,” he said. But “there is preliminary evidence in favor of each one.”
 

‘Additional Fuses Must Be Ignited’

It’s also unclear why most people infected with EBV do not develop MS. It appears that “additional fuses must be ignited,” for MS to take hold, according to a commentary accompanying the landmark 2022 study.

“As far as clinical implications, knowing whether a patient has a medical or family history of mononucleosis may be a small clue, a small piece of evidence, to help with diagnosis,” Dr. Bebo said.

He agreed with Dr. Levy that an antiviral could be a promising approach “If the problem in MS is a dysfunctional immune response to EBV.”

Natalia Drosu, MD, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center, said that a clinical trial of a non-immunosuppressive antiviral targeting EBV in patients with MS would be a crucial step toward better understanding the MS-EBV connection. “If we learn that antivirals are effective in MS, we should develop non-immunosuppressive therapies for patients with MS as soon as possible,” she said.

Stanford University’s Lawrence Steinman, MD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences, pediatrics, and genetics, who coauthored the commentary on the original Science paper, agreed that it’s worth investigating whether antiviral therapies targeting EBV will benefit patients who already have MS. But he cautioned against clinicians experimenting on their own outside of a research study. “You’d want to use the right antiviral and a properly designed trial,” he said.
 

Antivirals May Place a Crucial Role in MS Control

While there are no approved therapies for EBV, several MS disease-modifying therapies have anti-EBV effects, Dr. Levy said, citing anti-CD20 therapy as a clear example. It depletes B cells from the circulation, and it depletes EBV because the virus lives in the B-cell compartment. “Some MS treatments may be inadvertent EBV antivirals,” he said.

Researchers are also thinking about how they might exploit the MS-EBV link to prevent MS from developing in the first place, but there are uncertainties on that front too.

Conceivably, there may be some way to intervene in patients to treat EBV and prevent MS, such as a unique treatment for infectious mononucleosis (IM), Dr. Levy said.

Researchers are especially intrigued by signs that the timing of infection may play a role, with people infected with EBV via IM after early childhood at especially a high risk of developing MS. A 2022 German study calculated that people who developed IM were almost twice as likely as those who didn’t to develop MS within 10 years, although the risks in both groups were very small. Subgroup analysis revealed the strongest association between IM and MS was in the group infected between age 14 and 20 years (hazard ratio, 3.52; 95% CI, 1.00-12.37). They also saw a stronger association in men than in women.

The authors of a 2023 review in Clinical & Translational Immunology wrote that “further understanding of IM may be critical in solving the mystery” of EBV’s role in MS.

Dr. Levy said this line of questioning is important. “In theory, if we can tell who is prone to develop MS or whose immune system might be reacting to EBV to cause MS, we can intervene early to prevent neurological manifestations.”

However, “remember that while most of the world gets EBV infections, only 1 in 1000 will get MS. So, it might not be feasible to test everyone before neurological manifestations occur,” he said.
 

More Questions to Answer About EBV and MS

Researchers hope to answer several questions moving forward. For one, why is EBV uniquely connected to MS? “You would think that if there were cross-reactivity to myelin, there are many viruses that could cause MS. But the association seems to be very restricted to EBV,” Dr. Levy said. “It is probably due to the fact that EBV is one of the only human viruses that can infect B cells, which play important roles in controlling immune responses.”

The molecular mimicry theory also opens up a potential treatment pathway.

A 2022 study reported “high-affinity molecular mimicry between the EBV transcription factor EBV nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1) and the central nervous system protein glial cell adhesion molecule (GlialCAM)”. Antibodies against EBNA1 and GlialCAM are prevalent in patients with MS. In a mouse model of MS, the researchers showed that EBNA1 immunization exacerbates disease. The authors wrote that “Our results provide a mechanistic link for the association between MS and EBV and could guide the development of new MS therapies.”
 

Could an EBV Vaccine Be the Answer?

On the prevention front, perhaps the most obvious question is whether an EBV vaccine could eliminate MS for good?

Dr. Bebo, from the National MS Society, said it will be important to determine which kind of vaccine is best. Is it one that neutralizes infection with EBV? Or is it enough to simply prevent clinical manifestations?

Both types of vaccines are in development, and at least two clinical trials are now in the works. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is sponsoring a phase 1 study of an adjuvanted EBV gp350-Ferritin nanoparticle vaccine. Forty subjects aged 18-29 years will take part: 20 with EBV and 20 who are not infected. The study is expected to end in 2025.

There is also a phase 1 placebo-controlled study in progress testing an EBV vaccine based on mRNA-1189 in 422 subjects aged 12-30 years. This trial is also due to end in 2025.

“This is very exciting, but it may take a decade or two to determine whether a vaccine is effective at preventing MS,” Dr. Levy said.

Dr. Levy, Dr. Steinman, Dr. Drosu, and Dr. Bebo had no disclosures.
 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is our constant companion, infecting an estimated 90%-95% of adults. Many of us are first infected as children, when the germ may trigger cold and flu symptoms. EBV also causes mononucleosis, or kissing disease, a glandular fever that has afflicted generations of amorous young people.

Post infection, EBV settles in for the long haul and remains in the body until death. It’s thought to be largely innocuous, but EBV is now implicated as a cause of several types of cancer — including lymphoma and nasopharyngeal tumors – and multiple sclerosis (MS). In 2022, a landmark study in Science suggested that previous EBV infection is the primary cause of MS.

While there aren’t many implications for current treatment, greater insight into the origin story of MS may eventually help neurologists better diagnose and treat patients, experts said. The goal is to uncover clues that “can help us understand MS a little bit better and reveal insights that could lead to new disease-modifying therapy,” Bruce Bebo, PhD, executive vice president of research with the National MS Society, said in an interview.
 

EBV Boosts MS Risk 32-Fold

EBV was first linked to MS back in 1981. For the 2022 study, researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, Boston, analyzed blood serum from 10 million active-duty members of the US military. They focused on 801 recruits with MS and matched them with more than 1500 controls. All but one of those with MS had been infected with EBV; infection appeared to boost the risk for MS 32-fold (95% CI, 4.3-245.3; P < .001).

Neurologist and associate professor Michael Levy, MD, PhD, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, said in an interview that the findings are “groundbreaking” and confirm that EBV is “likely the primary cause of MS.”

According to Dr. Levy, there are two main theories about why EBV causes MS. The first hypothesis, known as the “molecular mimicry” theory, suggests that “EBV is a trigger of MS, possibly when the immune system mistakes a viral protein for a myelin protein and then attacks myelin,” Dr. Levy said. In MS, the immune system attacks the protective myelin sheath and the axons it insulates.

“After that point, the virus is not necessary to maintain the disease state and eradicating the virus likely won’t have much effect since the immune response is already triggered,” he said.

The second theory is that “EBV is a driver of MS where there is an ongoing, lifelong immunological response to EBV that continuously causes damage in the central nervous system [CNS]. In theory, if we could eradicate the virus, the destructive immune response could also resolve. Thus, an EBV antiviral treatment could potentially treat and maybe cure MS,” Dr. Levy explained, noting that “removing the pathogenic antigen may be a more effective strategy than removing the immune response.”

However, “we don’t yet know which hypothesis is correct,” he said. But “there is preliminary evidence in favor of each one.”
 

‘Additional Fuses Must Be Ignited’

It’s also unclear why most people infected with EBV do not develop MS. It appears that “additional fuses must be ignited,” for MS to take hold, according to a commentary accompanying the landmark 2022 study.

“As far as clinical implications, knowing whether a patient has a medical or family history of mononucleosis may be a small clue, a small piece of evidence, to help with diagnosis,” Dr. Bebo said.

He agreed with Dr. Levy that an antiviral could be a promising approach “If the problem in MS is a dysfunctional immune response to EBV.”

Natalia Drosu, MD, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center, said that a clinical trial of a non-immunosuppressive antiviral targeting EBV in patients with MS would be a crucial step toward better understanding the MS-EBV connection. “If we learn that antivirals are effective in MS, we should develop non-immunosuppressive therapies for patients with MS as soon as possible,” she said.

Stanford University’s Lawrence Steinman, MD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences, pediatrics, and genetics, who coauthored the commentary on the original Science paper, agreed that it’s worth investigating whether antiviral therapies targeting EBV will benefit patients who already have MS. But he cautioned against clinicians experimenting on their own outside of a research study. “You’d want to use the right antiviral and a properly designed trial,” he said.
 

Antivirals May Place a Crucial Role in MS Control

While there are no approved therapies for EBV, several MS disease-modifying therapies have anti-EBV effects, Dr. Levy said, citing anti-CD20 therapy as a clear example. It depletes B cells from the circulation, and it depletes EBV because the virus lives in the B-cell compartment. “Some MS treatments may be inadvertent EBV antivirals,” he said.

Researchers are also thinking about how they might exploit the MS-EBV link to prevent MS from developing in the first place, but there are uncertainties on that front too.

Conceivably, there may be some way to intervene in patients to treat EBV and prevent MS, such as a unique treatment for infectious mononucleosis (IM), Dr. Levy said.

Researchers are especially intrigued by signs that the timing of infection may play a role, with people infected with EBV via IM after early childhood at especially a high risk of developing MS. A 2022 German study calculated that people who developed IM were almost twice as likely as those who didn’t to develop MS within 10 years, although the risks in both groups were very small. Subgroup analysis revealed the strongest association between IM and MS was in the group infected between age 14 and 20 years (hazard ratio, 3.52; 95% CI, 1.00-12.37). They also saw a stronger association in men than in women.

The authors of a 2023 review in Clinical & Translational Immunology wrote that “further understanding of IM may be critical in solving the mystery” of EBV’s role in MS.

Dr. Levy said this line of questioning is important. “In theory, if we can tell who is prone to develop MS or whose immune system might be reacting to EBV to cause MS, we can intervene early to prevent neurological manifestations.”

However, “remember that while most of the world gets EBV infections, only 1 in 1000 will get MS. So, it might not be feasible to test everyone before neurological manifestations occur,” he said.
 

More Questions to Answer About EBV and MS

Researchers hope to answer several questions moving forward. For one, why is EBV uniquely connected to MS? “You would think that if there were cross-reactivity to myelin, there are many viruses that could cause MS. But the association seems to be very restricted to EBV,” Dr. Levy said. “It is probably due to the fact that EBV is one of the only human viruses that can infect B cells, which play important roles in controlling immune responses.”

The molecular mimicry theory also opens up a potential treatment pathway.

A 2022 study reported “high-affinity molecular mimicry between the EBV transcription factor EBV nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1) and the central nervous system protein glial cell adhesion molecule (GlialCAM)”. Antibodies against EBNA1 and GlialCAM are prevalent in patients with MS. In a mouse model of MS, the researchers showed that EBNA1 immunization exacerbates disease. The authors wrote that “Our results provide a mechanistic link for the association between MS and EBV and could guide the development of new MS therapies.”
 

Could an EBV Vaccine Be the Answer?

On the prevention front, perhaps the most obvious question is whether an EBV vaccine could eliminate MS for good?

Dr. Bebo, from the National MS Society, said it will be important to determine which kind of vaccine is best. Is it one that neutralizes infection with EBV? Or is it enough to simply prevent clinical manifestations?

Both types of vaccines are in development, and at least two clinical trials are now in the works. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is sponsoring a phase 1 study of an adjuvanted EBV gp350-Ferritin nanoparticle vaccine. Forty subjects aged 18-29 years will take part: 20 with EBV and 20 who are not infected. The study is expected to end in 2025.

There is also a phase 1 placebo-controlled study in progress testing an EBV vaccine based on mRNA-1189 in 422 subjects aged 12-30 years. This trial is also due to end in 2025.

“This is very exciting, but it may take a decade or two to determine whether a vaccine is effective at preventing MS,” Dr. Levy said.

Dr. Levy, Dr. Steinman, Dr. Drosu, and Dr. Bebo had no disclosures.
 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is our constant companion, infecting an estimated 90%-95% of adults. Many of us are first infected as children, when the germ may trigger cold and flu symptoms. EBV also causes mononucleosis, or kissing disease, a glandular fever that has afflicted generations of amorous young people.

Post infection, EBV settles in for the long haul and remains in the body until death. It’s thought to be largely innocuous, but EBV is now implicated as a cause of several types of cancer — including lymphoma and nasopharyngeal tumors – and multiple sclerosis (MS). In 2022, a landmark study in Science suggested that previous EBV infection is the primary cause of MS.

While there aren’t many implications for current treatment, greater insight into the origin story of MS may eventually help neurologists better diagnose and treat patients, experts said. The goal is to uncover clues that “can help us understand MS a little bit better and reveal insights that could lead to new disease-modifying therapy,” Bruce Bebo, PhD, executive vice president of research with the National MS Society, said in an interview.
 

EBV Boosts MS Risk 32-Fold

EBV was first linked to MS back in 1981. For the 2022 study, researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, Boston, analyzed blood serum from 10 million active-duty members of the US military. They focused on 801 recruits with MS and matched them with more than 1500 controls. All but one of those with MS had been infected with EBV; infection appeared to boost the risk for MS 32-fold (95% CI, 4.3-245.3; P < .001).

Neurologist and associate professor Michael Levy, MD, PhD, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, said in an interview that the findings are “groundbreaking” and confirm that EBV is “likely the primary cause of MS.”

According to Dr. Levy, there are two main theories about why EBV causes MS. The first hypothesis, known as the “molecular mimicry” theory, suggests that “EBV is a trigger of MS, possibly when the immune system mistakes a viral protein for a myelin protein and then attacks myelin,” Dr. Levy said. In MS, the immune system attacks the protective myelin sheath and the axons it insulates.

“After that point, the virus is not necessary to maintain the disease state and eradicating the virus likely won’t have much effect since the immune response is already triggered,” he said.

The second theory is that “EBV is a driver of MS where there is an ongoing, lifelong immunological response to EBV that continuously causes damage in the central nervous system [CNS]. In theory, if we could eradicate the virus, the destructive immune response could also resolve. Thus, an EBV antiviral treatment could potentially treat and maybe cure MS,” Dr. Levy explained, noting that “removing the pathogenic antigen may be a more effective strategy than removing the immune response.”

However, “we don’t yet know which hypothesis is correct,” he said. But “there is preliminary evidence in favor of each one.”
 

‘Additional Fuses Must Be Ignited’

It’s also unclear why most people infected with EBV do not develop MS. It appears that “additional fuses must be ignited,” for MS to take hold, according to a commentary accompanying the landmark 2022 study.

“As far as clinical implications, knowing whether a patient has a medical or family history of mononucleosis may be a small clue, a small piece of evidence, to help with diagnosis,” Dr. Bebo said.

He agreed with Dr. Levy that an antiviral could be a promising approach “If the problem in MS is a dysfunctional immune response to EBV.”

Natalia Drosu, MD, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center, said that a clinical trial of a non-immunosuppressive antiviral targeting EBV in patients with MS would be a crucial step toward better understanding the MS-EBV connection. “If we learn that antivirals are effective in MS, we should develop non-immunosuppressive therapies for patients with MS as soon as possible,” she said.

Stanford University’s Lawrence Steinman, MD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences, pediatrics, and genetics, who coauthored the commentary on the original Science paper, agreed that it’s worth investigating whether antiviral therapies targeting EBV will benefit patients who already have MS. But he cautioned against clinicians experimenting on their own outside of a research study. “You’d want to use the right antiviral and a properly designed trial,” he said.
 

Antivirals May Place a Crucial Role in MS Control

While there are no approved therapies for EBV, several MS disease-modifying therapies have anti-EBV effects, Dr. Levy said, citing anti-CD20 therapy as a clear example. It depletes B cells from the circulation, and it depletes EBV because the virus lives in the B-cell compartment. “Some MS treatments may be inadvertent EBV antivirals,” he said.

Researchers are also thinking about how they might exploit the MS-EBV link to prevent MS from developing in the first place, but there are uncertainties on that front too.

Conceivably, there may be some way to intervene in patients to treat EBV and prevent MS, such as a unique treatment for infectious mononucleosis (IM), Dr. Levy said.

Researchers are especially intrigued by signs that the timing of infection may play a role, with people infected with EBV via IM after early childhood at especially a high risk of developing MS. A 2022 German study calculated that people who developed IM were almost twice as likely as those who didn’t to develop MS within 10 years, although the risks in both groups were very small. Subgroup analysis revealed the strongest association between IM and MS was in the group infected between age 14 and 20 years (hazard ratio, 3.52; 95% CI, 1.00-12.37). They also saw a stronger association in men than in women.

The authors of a 2023 review in Clinical & Translational Immunology wrote that “further understanding of IM may be critical in solving the mystery” of EBV’s role in MS.

Dr. Levy said this line of questioning is important. “In theory, if we can tell who is prone to develop MS or whose immune system might be reacting to EBV to cause MS, we can intervene early to prevent neurological manifestations.”

However, “remember that while most of the world gets EBV infections, only 1 in 1000 will get MS. So, it might not be feasible to test everyone before neurological manifestations occur,” he said.
 

More Questions to Answer About EBV and MS

Researchers hope to answer several questions moving forward. For one, why is EBV uniquely connected to MS? “You would think that if there were cross-reactivity to myelin, there are many viruses that could cause MS. But the association seems to be very restricted to EBV,” Dr. Levy said. “It is probably due to the fact that EBV is one of the only human viruses that can infect B cells, which play important roles in controlling immune responses.”

The molecular mimicry theory also opens up a potential treatment pathway.

A 2022 study reported “high-affinity molecular mimicry between the EBV transcription factor EBV nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1) and the central nervous system protein glial cell adhesion molecule (GlialCAM)”. Antibodies against EBNA1 and GlialCAM are prevalent in patients with MS. In a mouse model of MS, the researchers showed that EBNA1 immunization exacerbates disease. The authors wrote that “Our results provide a mechanistic link for the association between MS and EBV and could guide the development of new MS therapies.”
 

Could an EBV Vaccine Be the Answer?

On the prevention front, perhaps the most obvious question is whether an EBV vaccine could eliminate MS for good?

Dr. Bebo, from the National MS Society, said it will be important to determine which kind of vaccine is best. Is it one that neutralizes infection with EBV? Or is it enough to simply prevent clinical manifestations?

Both types of vaccines are in development, and at least two clinical trials are now in the works. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is sponsoring a phase 1 study of an adjuvanted EBV gp350-Ferritin nanoparticle vaccine. Forty subjects aged 18-29 years will take part: 20 with EBV and 20 who are not infected. The study is expected to end in 2025.

There is also a phase 1 placebo-controlled study in progress testing an EBV vaccine based on mRNA-1189 in 422 subjects aged 12-30 years. This trial is also due to end in 2025.

“This is very exciting, but it may take a decade or two to determine whether a vaccine is effective at preventing MS,” Dr. Levy said.

Dr. Levy, Dr. Steinman, Dr. Drosu, and Dr. Bebo had no disclosures.
 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.