BACKGROUND Within the past 10 years, several immunomodulatory agents (IMAs) have become available for the treatment of relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS), making therapeutic decisions more complex. We performed a systematic review of the literature to assess the efficacy and safety of these agents on physical, inflammatory, and cognitive measures of disease activity. METHODS We identified rele...

Interferon (IFN) beta-1b was the first disease-modifying therapy to be approved for the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS), and over 21 years of follow-up data demonstrate its efficacy and long-term safety profile. Following recent regulatory approvals in the USA and European Union, IFN beta-1b is now one of the seven disease-modifying therapies [intramuscular IFN beta-1a; subcutaneous (SC) I...

AIM The purpose of this trial was to investigate the effect of a well known immunomodulator -interferon beta- on traumatized spinal cord in terms of biochemical and histopathological features. MATERIAL AND METHODS Twenty-four rats were used in this trial. The rats were divided into 3 groups. In the first group of rats, spinal cord injury was created by the weight drop method a...

INTRODUCTION Several cases of sarcoidosis following treatment with interferon-α have been reported in the literature, but those following interferon-β are very rare. We report the case of a patient with multiple sclerosis who developed pulmonary and cutaneous sarcoidosis following treatment with Betaseron® (interferon-β-1b). CASE PRESENTATION A 33-year-old Caucasian woman with a history of mu...

INTRODUCTION Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) generally undergo long-term treatment with disease-modifying therapies (DMTs). In the US, patients taking glatiramer acetate, interferon beta-1a, or interferon beta-1b, typically use a mechanical autoinjector. Recent survey results have shown that using an electronic autoinjector, such as BETACONNECT™ (Bayer Pharma AG) for interferon beta-1b/Be...

BACKGROUND Several controlled studies provide evidence that treatment with interferon beta in patients with a first event suggestive of multiple sclerosis (MS) delays conversion to clinically definite MS (CDMS). Our aim was to determine whether early initiation of treatment with interferon beta prevents development of confirmed disability in MS. METHODS In the initial placebo-controlled phase...

BACKGROUND In the randomized study of interferon beta-1b (IFN beta-1b) for multiple sclerosis (MS), it has usually been evaluated the simple annual relapse rate as the study endpoint. This study aimed to investigate the performance of various regression models using information regarding the time to each recurrent event and considering the MS specific data generation process, and to estimate th...

BACKGROUND The ExtaviPro™ 30G autoinjector has been developed for self-administration of interferon beta-1b (Extavia®), which is used as a first-line, parenteral, disease-modifying therapy in multiple sclerosis (MS). The aim of this survey was to investigate patients' perceptions of the importance of different general attributes of autoinjectors, and patient preferences when comparing the Extav...

BACKGROUND The Evaluate Patient OutComes (EPOC) study assessed physician- and patient-reported outcomes in individuals with relapsing multiple sclerosis who switched directly from injectable disease-modifying therapy (iDMT; glatiramer acetate, intramuscular or subcutaneous interferon beta-1a, or interferon beta-1b) to once-daily, oral fingolimod. Post hoc analyses evaluated the impact of a swit...