How Biologics Are Shaping Multiple Sclerosis Treatment & Management
Multiple sclerosis is an invisible illness because its symptoms are undetectable to the human eye.
As we observe Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week, Altus Infusion wishes to recognize those individuals living with MS.
We commend you for your strength and for showing us that the human spirit is greater than any disease. Today we will explore biologics’ role in the multiple sclerosis treatment and management.
Multiple Sclerosis in America
The National MS Society estimates close to one million adult Americans currently live with MS. Although the disease can affect anyone, there are some risk factors:
- Women are two to three times more likely to develop the disease
- Most patients are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50
- Studies suggest that certain genetic factors increase the risk of developing MS. However, there is no concrete evidence that MS is directly inherited
- Environmental factors including, low Vitamin D and cigarette smoking can also increase the risk of MS
What is Multiple Sclerosis?
Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, progressive disease of the central nervous system (CNS) and is an immune-mediated disorder in which the system attacks healthy tissue in the CNS.
Damage caused in the CNS by the disease interferes with the transmission of nerve signals from the brain to the spinal cord and other parts of the body.
Disease Progression
Every patient experiences the disease differently, and there is no way to predict with any certainty how MS will progress.
However, specialists have identified four basic disease courses:
- Clinically Isolated Syndrome: These are the first neurologic symptoms caused by inflammation and demyelination in the CNS.
- Relapsing-Remitting MS: Relapsing periods of new or worsening of older symptoms that later subside. Relapsing-remitting MS shows no disease progression between attacks.
- Secondary progressive MS: A more progressive course, with or without relapses or new MRI activity.
- Primary progressive MS: A gradual but steady progression of disability with few or no remissions or relapses.
Multiple Sclerosis Treatment and Management
Multiple sclerosis remains incurable. However, recent advances in the potency and tolerability of biologic therapies for the inflammatory aspects of MS provides a positive outlook in developing biologic drugs aimed to treat and manage the challenging progressive stages of the disease.
Biologic Infusion Therapies
Infusion treatments include:
Ocrevus®
This humanized immunoglobulin antibody medication is approved by the FDA to treat both the relapse-remitting and primary-progressive forms of MS.
Clinical trials of Ocrevus showed it reduced relapse rates and slowed worsening of disability in both forms of the disease.
Tysabri®
This biologic drug was designed to block the movement of potentially damaging immune cells from the patient’s bloodstream to their brain and spinal cord.
It can be considered a first-line treatment for some people with severe MS or as a second-line treatment in other patients.
Lemtrada®
This biologic drug helps reduce relapses of MS by depleting white blood cells and targeting a protein on the surface of immune cells. This effect can limit potential nerve damage caused by white blood cells.
As a leader in the in-office biologic management industry, Altus Infusion is helping to make biologic treatments for multiple sclerosis more accessible and affordable.
While MS might be an invisible disease for most, at Altus Infusion, we advocate for MS patient rights and access to treatments. To us, no patient is invisible.
