Advantages of Wellness as a Therapy for Pediatric MS: Brenda Banwell, MD
The chief of neurology and codirector of the neuroscience Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, spoke about the wellbeing of pediatric patients with MS in reference to her presentation at ECTRIMS 2022. [WATCH TIME: 4 minutes]
WATCH TIME: 4 minutes
“Our patients with MS are very sedentary, and increased fitness improves brain health. It improves morale, it improves muscle, it improves overall endurance. These are things that we invest in or we should invest in for our children if you want that lifestyle to carry forward.”
Recently, Brenda Banwell, MD, and colleagues gave an oral presentation at the 2022 European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) Congress, from October 26-28, in Amsterdam, Netherlands on the superiority of fingolimod (Gilenya; Novartis) as a treatment for pediatric multiple sclerosis (PedMS).1 The analysis, stemming from the core phase (CP) of PARADIGMS trial (NCT01892722) highlighted the efficacy of the therapy in terms of relapses and MRI outcomes in comparison with interferon β-1a.
The randomized trial included 215 patients with PedMS who were treated for up to 2 years and then followed them into the open-label expansion phase (EP) (n = 171) for up to 5-years. Fingolimod was given as a dosage of 0.5 mg/d or 0.25 mg/d based on the patients’ body weight, as individuals that weighed more than 40kg received 0.5mg/d dose.
The continuous fingolimod group in CP+EP had an adjusted annualized relapse rate (ARR) of 0.11 (95% CI, 0.08, 0.16) vs AAR of 0.34 (95% CI, 0.25, 0.47) for those who switched therapies. More than 20% of patients experienced adverse events, most common of which were nasopharyngitis (43.5%), headache (34.1%), leukopenia (25.3%), and upper respiratory tract infection (21.2%).
In a recent interview with NeurologyLive®, Banwell, chief of neurology, codirector of the neuroscience Center, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, professor of neurology and Pediatrics, the University of Pennsylvania, discussed the current unmet needs in pediatric MS based on the data from the PARADIGMS trial and where the field stands on resolving them.
