‘No evidence of disease activity’ in assessing the risk of conversion to secondary progressive multiple sclerosis

Summary This study aims to investigate the predictive power of ‘No evidence of disease activity’ for assessing risk of secondary progressive multiple sclerosis during the early stage of disease.

Project Details

Secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS) is characterized by progressive accumulation of permanent disability following an initial relapsing remitting phase. Clinical features including number of relapses and worsening of disability have been found to be associated with higher risk of SPMS. Exposure to disease modifying therapies (DMT), on the other hand, reduces the risk. Paraclinical features such as abnormal findings on magnetic resonance images (MRI) have been found to be of no prognostic value in regards to SPMS conversion. ‘No evidence of disease activity’ (NEDA) is a composite index that requires complete absence of clinical and MRI activity. We hypothesize that sustained NEDA in the initial years after disease onset are associated with delayed time to SPMS. Findings from this study will guide clinicians in individual prognostics among patients in early stages of MS, and will help justify certain choices of treatment strategy. Observational data from an international cohort of MS patients (MSBase) will be used to examine this hypothesis.