Authors: J Río M Tintoré C Nos N Téllez I Galán R Pelayo X Montalban
Publish Date: 2007/03/14
Volume: 254, Issue: 7, Pages: 849-
Abstract
Observational studies may provide additional information about the behaviour of different drugs in the postmarketing period We present the data from a cohort of secondary progressive multiple sclerosis SPMS patients treated with interferon beta IFNβ1b at our MS clinicThis was an independent openlabel nonrandomised observational study Within the period 1998 to 2005 all patients with SPMS who started therapy with IFNβ1b at our centre were studied Each patient was included in a followup protocol collecting demographic and baseline clinical dataWe studied 146 SPMS patients with a median followup of 60 months Over the total study period 622 of patients had confirmed progression The analysis of the time to con firmed progression showed that patients with two or more relapses in the 2 years before IFNβ initiation had a higher risk of disability increase than those patients with less than two relapses p = 0002 Multiple regression analysis showed disease activity in terms of relapses as the only factor to predict increase of disability during the followup period A significant proportion of patients 36 stopped treatment during the followup period IFNβ was safe although some unexpected adverse events were observed
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