MS News

multiplesclerosisnewstoday....

[Iona60]

If I understood this correctly, people treated with copaxone had a lower risk of converting from RRMS to SPMS than those treated with tysabri.

[Hidden in reply to Iona60]

🤐

[Frances_B in reply to Iona60]

Not exactly - the older CRAB drugs overall had higher conversion rates - generally the old drugs have lower efficacy, lower risks, and (if you're lucky) also fewer side effects than the more recently developed drugs. The study actually compared conversion rates for people who were prescribed a DMT versus those who had NO treatment. All of the more recently developed drugs are considered more effective than the old CRAB drugs - if they weren't then no-one would bother prescribing them. As the article states, "...according to the study, treatment with newer DMTs appears to be more effective at slowing advance of the disease than older glatiramer acetate and interferon beta treatments."

In the days when the CRAB drugs were all that was available there was much less of a tendency to treat MS promptly i.e. soon after diagnosis. The MS News Today article it clearly states that "The risk of moving from RRMS to SPMS was lower when the glatiramer acetate or interferon beta treatment was started quickly, within five years of disease onset." These days leaving people with no drug treatment for up to five years after diagnosis is NOT considered "quickly".

There is also a direct quote from the conclusions in the original article published by Kalincik: "Among patients with relapsing-remitting MS, initial treatment with fingolimod, alemtuzumab, or natalizumab was associated with a lower risk of conversion to secondary progressive MS vs initial treatment with glatiramer acetate or interferon beta."

[Frances_B]

Supremo - it would be a good idea not to post blind links - many people are reluctant to just click on a blind link as you can't be certain where it might take you or what risks your computer/phone/tablet might be exposed to.

Perhaps write a brief sentence to let people know what the article on a link is about. And, Yes, we can generally see the bit that says multiplesclerorisnewstoday but many of us are already subscribers to one or more the various MS news feeds, and don't necessarily want to end up being taken through to an article we may well have read months or even a couple of years ago.