R. Mantegazza
Fondazione IRCCS, Istituto Neurologico Carlo BestaDr. Renato Mantegazza has a long-lasting experience in the field of Myasthenia Gravis (MG), Neuromuscular Junction Diseases (such as Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome), Multiple Sclerosis, Motor Neuron Diseases and Inflammatory Myopathies by giving contributions in the understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms underlying these diseases and in their treatments. Dr. Mantegazza professional and scientific training was developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), Stanford University (USA). His scientific production consists of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications.
He is the Director of the Neuroimmunology and Neuromuscular Diseases Unit at the Fondazione Istituto Neurologico "Carlo Besta" of Milan. The Department activity is focused on the diagnostics, treatment and research of immune-mediated neurological diseases as well as neuromuscular, motor neuron and muscular disorders. The Department hosts biobanks for sera/plasma/CSF, muscle/myoblasts, thymus/thymic cell lines, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, fibroblasts/iPSCs, and nucleic acids from a large number of MS and MG/LEMS patients.
Dr. Mantegazza has been appointed as the Director of the Clinical Research Department for the Istituto Neurologico "Carlo Besta" and is PI of several clinical trials in Multiple Sclerosis and Myasthenia Gravis. Dr. Renato Mantegazza is part of Scientific Advisory Boards of Alexion Pharmaceuticals, ARGX, UCB, Regeneron and Roche.
Author Of 1 Presentation
PS01.04 - Comparison of disability trajectories in relapsing Multiple Sclerosis patients treated with early intensive or escalation treatment strategies
- P. Iaffaldano
- G. Lucisano
- F. Caputo
- D. Paolicelli
- F. Patti
- M. Zaffaroni
- V. Brescia Morra
- C. Pozzilli
- G. De Luca
- M. Inglese
- G. Salemi
- C. Florio
- E. Cocco
- P. Sola
- G. Lus
- A. Conte
- M. Amato
- F. Granella
- S. Galgani
- D. Centonze
- R. Totaro
- M. Rovaris
- M. Salvetti
- R. Mantegazza
- R. Bergamaschi
- D. Maimone
- E. Scarpini
- A. Bertolotto
- G. Comi
- M. Filippi
- M. Trojano
Abstract
Background
to date, no consensus exists on how aggressively and timely treat relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) patients.
Objectives
To evaluate disability trajectories in a cohort of RRMS patients stratified according to two different disease modifying therapy (DMT) strategies, early intensive treatment (EIT) or moderate-efficacy treatment followed by escalation to higher-efficacy DMT (ESC).
Methods
RRMS patients with ≥5-year follow-up and ≥3 visits after start DMT, and a first visit within 3 years from disease onset were selected from the Italian MS Registry. EIT group included patients who received, as first DMT, fingolimod, natalizumab, mitoxantrone, alemtuzumab, ocrelizumab, cladribine. ESC group included those who received the high efficacy DMT after ≥1 year of glatiramer acetate, interferons, azathioprine, teriflunomide or dimethylfumarate treatment. Patients were 1:1 propensity score(PS)-matched for characteristics at the first DMT. The follow-up time from the first DMT start has been segmented into 12-month periods. The disability trajectories were evaluated by applying a longitudinal model for repeated measures with an autoregressive variance-covariance structure. The effect of early versus late start of high-efficacy DMT was assessed by the mean annual EDSS changes compared to baseline values (delta-EDSS) in EIT and ESC groups.
Results
The study cohort included 2,652 RRMS patients from 62 Italian MS centers. The PS matching procedure produced 365 pairs. The median (IQR) follow-up after the first DMT start was 8.5 (6.5–11.7) years. All of the ESC patients escalated to a higher-efficacy DMT after a median time of 5.1 (3.1–8.4) years. The estimated baseline EDSS with relative confidence interval (95% CI) value was 2.52 (2.33-2.71) in the ESC group and 2.45 (2.26-2.64) in the EIT group. Mean delta-EDSS at each 12 month period were all significantly (p<0.02) higher in the ESC group compared to the EIT group. In particular, the mean delta-EDSS differences between the two groups tend to increase from 0.1 (0.01-0.19, p=0.03) at 1 year to 0.30 (0.07-0.53, p=0.009) at 5 years and to 0.67 (0.31-1.03, p=0.0003) at 10 years.
Conclusions
Our results indicate that EIT strategy is more effective than ESC strategy in controlling disability progression and the effect tends to increase over time despite patients in the ESC group escalated to a higher-efficacy DMT.