Safety and efficacy of dimethyl fumarate in multiple sclerosis: a multi-center observational study.
Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) was recently approved for treating patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) based on two phase III clinical trials demonstrating its efficacy. This prompts the need for demonstrating the clinical efficacy and safety of DMF in the real world. By retrospective analysis of medical records at two German MS centers, 644 MS patients treated with DMF were identified. All were included in a safety analysis, and a subgroup of patients with available efficacy data during previous MS therapies (n = 352) was further analyzed for annualized relapse rate and disability progression assessed by the EDSS. In the overall DMF population studied, the annualized relapse rate decreased from 0.52 at baseline to 0.35, and the annualized disability progression from 0.15 to 0.10. Patients who were switched from interferons or glatiramer acetate to DMF revealed a greater benefit, whereas patients pretreated with more potent immunotherapies did not respond that well. Interestingly, patients with a lymphocyte count ≥2000/µl after 0.52 years (mean, SD 0.2) of DMF treatment did not benefit compared to those with lower lymphocyte counts. In total, 22.2 % of the patients withdrew from DMF due to side effects, with gastrointestinal discomfort (12.7 %) and lymphopenia (5.3 %) as most frequently reported reasons. Our study corroborates that DMF is an overall safe and effective drug that reduces relapse rate as well as disability progression in MS patients. Further prospective studies are warranted to establish the additional parameters predicting DMF response, especially in patients switching from other first-line immunotherapies.
Department of Neurology, St. Josef Hospital, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
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Miclea
Department of Neurology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
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Leussink
Department of Neurology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
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Hartung
Department of Neurology, St. Josef Hospital, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany. ralf.gold@rub.de.
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Gold
Department of Neurology, St. Josef Hospital, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
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Hoepner
D000328:Adult; D000069462:Dimethyl Fumarate / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D018655:Lymphocyte Count; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009103:Multiple Sclerosis / Q000188:drug therapy*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents; D000069462:Dimethyl Fumarate
Annualized relapse rate; Dimethyl fumarate; EDSS progression; Lymphopenia; Safety