MS patients seek safe and effective treatment: answers found in a decade of experience. (Advertisement).

Multiple sclerosis became treatable in 1993

Multiple sclerosis (MS) has become more manageable, in large part because of the availability of disease-modifying drugs typified by the interferon-betas. The first of these therapies, interferon beta-1b (Betaseron[R]), began clinical trials in 1988 and was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for widespread use in 1993. Since then it has become apparent that treatment is best started at the very first stages of illness, because doing so increases the odds that therapy will be effective.

Long-term therapy helps prevent future relapses and limit permanent nerve damage

Immunotherapies are to MS what insulin is to diabetes. As long as a person with diabetes stays on insulin, the disease stays under control. So, too, as long as a person with MS continues to use immunotherapy, disease flare-ups can be reduced.

Patients need assurance of safety with extended treatment

Neither insulin nor disease-modifying therapies are without side effects.* Fortunately, adverse reactions to anti-MS therapies, particularly flulike symptoms, usually occur only at the beginning of treatment and can be controlled by lowering the dosage for a few weeks and taking ibuprofen during the 24 hours after injection.

Encouraging results have been reported

Positive long-term safety and tolerability data are now available. At multiple research sites in Canada, people with MS have been treated with interferon beta-1b for almost 13 years. Their progress has been carefully monitored by teams of clinical researchers.

One such team, composed of doctors from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont, and led by George Rice, MD, recently described their preliminary long-term safety and tolerability findings among patients treated with Betaseron. The report was presented at the ECTRIMS Conference in Dublin, Ireland, last September.

Forty-five patients with relapsing-remitting MS began Betaseron treatment at the London (Ont.) Health Sciences Centre in 1988; of these, 31 elected to continue therapy after 5 years of treatment. Nineteen (61%) of these 31 patients are still using Betaseron.

Tolerability of the drug in those who continued treatment was very good. For example, flulike symptoms largely disappeared. Although skin damage at the site of injection occurred in 16% of the patients, it was not an impediment to long-term use.

It is important to note that no unexpected adverse effects were reported in this group of patients who had more than a decade of Betaseron therapy.

Long-Term Tolerability of Betaseron[R] Exceeds Expectations

George Rice, MD, Director of the MS Clinic, London Health Sciences Centre and Professor in the Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, told colleagues at ECTRIMS:

"Favorable long-term tolerability, depression of MRI T2 lesion burden, and the disappearance of neutralizing antibodies are reassuring to patients who have begun long-term treatment programs with interferon beta-1b. These factors may explain a treatment compliance of 61% ... which we consider remarkable for such a treatment."

These long-term tolerability data come as particularly welcome news in conjunction with the American Academy of Neurology guidelines that confirm the effectiveness of interferon beta-1b in slowing disease progression.