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Multiple sclerosis therapy: new agents carry new risks

¹ Institute for Multiple Sclerosis Research, Medical Faculty, University of Göttingen and Gemeinnützige Hertie-Stiftung, Göttingen, Germany
² Institute for Clinical Neuroimmunology, Ludwig-Maxilimians University of Munich, Munich, Germany

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr R Gold, Department of Experimental and Clinical Neuroimmunology, Institute for MS-Research, Waldweg 33, 37073, Göttingen, Germany
r.gold@med.uni-goettingen.de

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common and disabling neurological disease of young adults. Currently more than 1.2 million people are affected worldwide, and the relapsing-remitting form of MS is three times more common in females than males. There are several lines of evidence to suggest that MS is an autoimmune disease which may be modified by genetic factors (see Compston et al¹). However it has taken more than a century after the first systematic description of MS by English and French neurologists for any progress to be made in treatment.

The currently available immunomodulatory treatments, interferon-beta (IFN-ß) and glatiramer acetate, are reasonably safe but unfortunately only partially effective.¹ There is no doubt that better and more effective therapies are needed. The development of new agents has been aided by a better understanding of immunopathogenetic subtypes of MS,^2,3 improvement in MS trial methodology and MRI techniques,⁴ and research on . . . [Full text of this article]