ArticleNeurology2023
Association of Very Early Treatment Initiation With the Risk of Long-term Disability in Patients With a First Demyelinating Event.
Article in Neurology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- Early Prognostic Factors in Multiple Sclerosis: Clinical and Therapeutic Implications.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Pooled it
- Spider-MS: an individualized polyhedral prediction of multiple sclerosis prognosis.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2026Article
- Assessing Progression Independent of Relapse Activity in Multiple Sclerosis Using a Patient-Reported Disability Measure and Self-Administered Neuroperformance Outcomes.Annals of neurology · 2026Article
- Applying the 2024-revised McDonald criteria for multiple sclerosis using conventional diagnostic tools: a single-centre prospective cohort study in Germany.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
- AI-Based Classification of Multiple Sclerosis Using OCT Retinal Layer Thickness Across Two Centers.Biomedicines · 2026Article
- Application of the 2024 McDonald Criteria in Individuals With Nonspecific Symptoms or Incidental Imaging Findings in a Multicenter Study.Neurology · 2026Observational
- Preserving Neurological Function in People at High and Low Risk of Aggressive Multiple Sclerosis: An Observational Cohort Study.CNS drugs · 2026Observational
- Dual-Targeting miR-219 and miR-146a in Multiple Sclerosis: Bridging Myelin Repair and Neuroinflammation for Novel Therapeutic Insights.Cellular and molecular neurobiology · 2026Review
- Effects of disease-modifying drugs on serum neurofilament light chain, chitinase-3-like-1 protein levels, and selected plasmacytoid dendritic cell biomarkers in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.African journal of laboratory medicine · 2026Article
- Racial and ethnic disparities in disease-modifying therapy use among adults with multiple sclerosis: a real-world analysis of the All of Us Research Program.Frontiers in neurology · 2026Observational
- Machine Learning Analysis Applied to Prediction of Early Progression Independent of Relapse Activity in Multiple Sclerosis Patients.European journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Implementation of the 2024 revision of the McDonald criteria for multiple sclerosis.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2025Article
- A paradigm shift away from dissemination in time in multiple sclerosis.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2025Article
- Five-Year Safety and Efficacy Outcomes with Ofatumumab in Patients with Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis.Neurology and therapy · 2025Article
- Targeting HDAC3 Suppresses Ferroptosis and Demyelination in White Matter Injury by Restoring PDK4-Mediated Iron Homeostasis.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2025Article
- The Barcelona baseline risk score to predict long-term prognosis after a first demyelinating event: a prospective observational study.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2025Article
- De-escalating and discontinuing disease-modifying therapies in multiple sclerosis.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2025Review
- Secondary progression activity monitoring in MS despite an early highly active treatment the SPAM study.European journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Effect of the Number of Vaccine Doses Before Starting Anti-CD20 Therapy on Seroprotection Rates Against Hepatitis B Virus in People With MS.Neurology · 2025Article
- Racial disparities in acute care utilization among individuals with myasthenia gravis.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
24 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectivesEarly treatment is associated with better long-term outcomes in patients with a first demyelinating event and early multiple sclerosis (MS). However, magnetic resonance (MR) findings are not usually integrated to construct propensity scores (PSs) when evaluating outcomes. We assessed the association of receiving very early treatment with the risk of long-term disability including an MR score (MRS) in patients with a first demyelinating event.
methodsWe included 580 patients with a first demyelinating event prospectively collected between 1994 and 2021, who received at least 1 disease-modifying drug (DMD). Patients were classified into tertiles according to the cohort's distribution of the time from the first demyelinating event to the first DMD: first tertile (FT) or very early treatment (6 months; n = 194), second tertile (6.1-16 months, n = 192), and third tertile (TT) (16.1 months, n = 194). A 5-point MRS was built according to the sum of the following indicators: ≥9 brain lesions (1 point); ≥1 infratentorial lesion (1 point); ≥1 spinal cord (SC) lesion (1 point); ≥1 contrast-enhancing (CE) brain lesion (1 point); and ≥1 CE SC lesion (1 point). PS based on covariates and the MRS was computed for each of the outcomes. Inverse PS-weighted Cox and linear regression models assessed the risk of different outcomes between tertile groups. Finally, to confirm the role of MR in treatment decision, we studied the time elapsed from the first demyelinating event to treatment initiation according to the MRS in all patients with radiologic available information, renamed as raw-MRS.
resultsVery early treatment decreased the risk of reaching Expanded Disability Status Scale 3.0 (hazard ratio [HR] 0.55, 95% CI 0.32-0.97), secondary progressive MS (HR 0.40, 95% CI 0.19-0.85), and sustained disease progression at 12 months after treatment initiation (HR 0.50, 95% CI 0.29-0.84), when compared with patients from the TT group. Patients from the FT group had a lower disability progression rate (β estimate -0.009, 95% CI -0.016 to -0.002) and a lower severe disability measured by the Patient-Determined Disease Step (β estimate -0.52, 95% CI -0.91 to -0.13) than the TT group. Finally, there was a 62.4% reduction in the median time between the first demyelinating event and the first-ever treatment initiation from patients displaying a raw-MRS 1 to patients with a raw-MRS 5. DISCUSSION: Using PS models with and without MRS, we showed that treatment initiation at very early stages is associated with a reduction in the risk of long-term disability accrual in patients with a first demyelinating event. CLASSIFICATION OF EVIDENCE: This study provides Class III evidence that earlier treatment of patients with MS presenting with a first demyelinating event is associated with improved clinical outcomes.
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