Key clinical point: The proportion of patients with active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) reaching “no evidence of disease activity” (NEDA) was greater with natalizumab (NTZ) vs. fingolimod (FTY) after a year of treatment.
Major finding: At 12 months, 47.8% of NTZ-treated patients reached NEDA vs. 30.4% of FTY-treated patients. The risk of relapse was lower with NTZ vs. FTY after 6 months of treatment (annualized relapse rate, 0.02 vs. 0.09; P = .05). MRI outcomes revealed a higher NTZ effectiveness regarding the number of new T2 (0.44 vs. 1.14; P = .03) and gadolinium-enhancing (0.03 vs. 0.48; P = .03) lesions.
Study details: BEST-MS was a multicentric, prospective study with a 12-month follow-up period that compared the efficacy of NTZ and FTY in active relapsing-remitting MS. A total of 223 patients were included (109 patients were treated with NTZ and 114 with FTY).
Disclosures: The study has received funding from FP7 Health Innovation-1 in 2012. Pierre Labauge received grants from Biogen and Novartis. Kevin Bigaut received grant travel by Biogen Idec and Sanofi-Genzyme. No other disclosures were reported.
Source: Cohen M et al. Mult Scler. 2020 Oct 30. doi: 10.1177/1352458520969145 .