Information provided by:
Cherie C. Binns RN BS MSCN – a member of the MS Views and News advisory panel
By Nancy Walsh, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: November 19, 2012
Reviewed by Dori F. Zaleznik, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse Planner
Time to secondary progression in multiple sclerosis (MS), not the frequency of early inflammatory attacks, was the strongest predictor of severe disability later on, researchers found.
The likelihood of needing a cane for walking was reduced by 24% among patients who were free from progression for 5 years (OR 0.76, 95% CI 0.69 to 0.84), according to George C. Ebers, MD, of the University of Oxford in England, and colleagues.
In addition, the probability of needing a walking aid fell by 42% (OR 0.58, 95% CI 0.51 to 0.67) for those without progression for 10 years and by 56% (OR 0.44, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.52) for those remaining progression-free for 15 years, the researchers reported online in Archives of Neurology.
“This study provides evidence that severe disability accumulation is induced by mechanisms tied to the onset and evolution of the progressive phase, which are largely independent of inflammatory attacks,” they observed.
Despite previous experience showing that the number of early relapses in MS correlates poorly with eventual disability, the rate of these attacks is often used as a marker for progression to disability, particularly in clinical trials.
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