title: Disease-modifying therapies in multiple sclerosis: an update on recent and ongoing trials and future strategies.
abstract: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the prototype inflammatory autoimmune disorder of the central nervous system and the most common cause of neurological disability in young adults exhibiting considerable clinical, radiological and pathological heterogeneity. Novel insights in the immunopathological processes, advances in biotechnology, development of powerful magnetic resonance imaging technologies together with improvements in clinical trial design led to a variety of evaluable therapeutic approaches. Therapy has changed dramatically over the past decade, yielding significant progress for the treatment of relapsing-remitting and secondary progressive MS. A substantial number of pivotal and preliminary reports continue to demonstrate encouraging new evidence that advances are being made in the care of MS patients. This review summarises recent progress with currently available disease-modifying therapies and - on the basis of present immunopathogenetic concepts - outlines ongoing studies as well as future treatment strategies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Tübingen, Hoppe-Seyler-Strasse 3, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany. heinz.wiendl@uni-tuebingen.de
authors.forename: Heinz
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wiendl
authors.forename: Bernd C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Kieseier
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D016899:Interferon-beta / Q000627:therapeutic use; D009103:Multiple Sclerosis / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000276:immunology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D016899:Interferon-beta