Zoster virus, early cognitive impairment can be side effects of MS drugs and their withdrawal effects.
The following articles examined various therapies used to treat multiple sclerosis, as well as some of their side effects. In the first study, patients taking the drug fingolimod had a greater chance of developing the zoster virus and, in the case study, autoantibodies against the NMDA receptor unleashed by withdrawal of natalizumab (Tysabri) were suspected as the cause of a MS patient’s early cognitive impairment.
Patients taking the oral multiple sclerosis drug fingolimod (Gilenya) in clinical trials were more likely to develop new varicella-zoster virus (VZV) infections than those in the placebo groups, researchers said, although the absolute risk was still relatively small.
Among patients enrolled in the drug’s phase II and III trials, the rate of new zoster infections was 11 per 1,000 patient-years of drug exposure in those receiving fingolimod compared with six per 1,000 patient-years with placebo, according to Norman Putski, MD, of drugmaker Novartis Pharma in Basel, Switzerland, and colleagues.
The researchers, who also included several prominent academic scientists in the multiple sclerosis (MS) field, also examined postmarketing reports on fingolimod and calculated a rate of seven zoster infections per 1,000 patient-years, on the basis of some 54,000 patient-years of drug exposure, they reported online in JAMA Neurology.
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