Wearing-off symptoms during standard and extended natalizumab dosing intervals: Experiences from the COVID-19 pandemic.
J Neurol Sci
; 429: 117622, 2021 10 15.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1364275
ABSTRACT
Natalizumab effectively prevents disease activity in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, but many treated patients report subjective wearing-off symptoms at the end of the 4-week interval between infusions. Extended interval dosing (EID) is a promising strategy to mitigate the risk of natalizumab-associated progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, but it is unknown whether EID affects wearing-off symptoms. In this observational study, we evaluated if prevalence or intensity of wearing-off symptoms changed when natalizumab dosing intervals were extended from 4 to 6 weeks in 30 treated patients during the outbreak of COVID-19 in Norway. New or increased wearing-off symptoms during EID were reported by 50%. Symptom increase was more frequent among patients with pre-existing wearing-off symptoms during standard dosing compared to patients without such pre-existing symptoms [p = 0.0005]. Our observations support the need to study the effect of EID on wearing-off symptoms in randomized controlled trials.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Leukoencephalopathy, Progressive Multifocal
/
Multiple Sclerosis, Relapsing-Remitting
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
J Neurol Sci
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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