Differences Between MS Patient Characteristics in Clinical Trials and Real-World Populations
Stephen Krieger, MD; Daniel Bandari, MD, MS; Bruce Hughes, MD; Mitzi Williams, MD; and Heidi Crayton, MD, review the OPTIMISE study and reflect on the differences between patient characteristics in clinical trial settings vs clinical practice.
Stephen Krieger, MD: We’re here at the Congress of ECTRIMS [European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis] in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in the fall of 2022. It’s nice to be at an in-person event. There’s a lot of new work being presented here. One piece of work by Dr Ruth Dobson and colleagues from a project called the OPTIMISE study, this was conducted out of the United Kingdom, and it looked at just how different patients are in real-world populations than in the studies, and finding one of the main differences is they’re older. Patients in real life are older than in clinical trials because, of course, there’s an age cap in clinical trials, and we don’t have an age cap in real life as we take care of people with MS [multiple sclerosis] well into their geriatric time point. Dr Williams, how does age as a comorbidity affect how you’re thinking about MS treatment or starting MS treatment in general?