Beta Interferon on 7 year progression

Treatment with interferon beta delays the onset of secondary progressive MS. #MSBlog #MSResearch

"This uncontrolled observational study confirms an increasing number of real-life data sets that treatment with DMTs, in this case IFN-beta, delays the time to the onset of SPMS. The only outlier is the data set from the University of British Columbia, which has been heavily criticised. All the leading MS statisticians I have spoken to about in relation this study have issues with the methodology."

"Unfortunately, the therapeutic nihilists and denialists out there won't accept real-life data and will only accept data from randomised controlled trials. The problem with the later is that the time to onset of SPMS or EDSS 4.0 the a relatively widely accepted surrogate for the onset of SPMS takes a long time and it would be unethical to do 5 or 7 years study to show this. What do you think?".


Drulovic et al. Interferon-beta and disability progression in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Clin Neurol Neurosurg. 2013;115 Suppl 1:S65-9.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of interferon (IFN)-beta treatment on the progression of unremitting disability in IFN-beta treated and untreated relapsing-remitting (RR) MSers using prospective cohort study.


METHODS: A cohort of 419 RRMS (236 IFN-beta-treated and 183 untreated) MSers was followed for up to 7 years. Cox proportional hazards regression models adjusted for the number of relapses in the last year before first visit was used to assess the differences between the two groups for the three end points: secondary progression (SP), and sustained Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score 4 and 6. Time from disease onset was used as survival time variable.

RESULTS: The IFN-beta-treated group showed a highly significant reduction (hazard ratio [HR], 0.34, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.19-0.61, p<0.001) in the risk of SP when compared with untreated MSers. There were significant differences in favor of the IFN-beta-treated group for the end point EDSS score of 4 (HR=0.45, 95%CI 0.28-0.73, p=0.001) and EDSS score of 6 (HR=0.34, 95%CI 0.16-0.75, p=0.007).

CONCLUSION: This observational study further supports the notion that IFN-beta could have potential beneficial effect on disease progression in RRMS.

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