The following is a summary of “Relapse recovery in relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis: An analysis of the CombiRx dataset,” published in the October 2023 issue of Neurology by Koch et al.
Relapses define relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS), but the time course of relapse recovery is poorly understood. Researchers performed a retrospective study to identify the factors influencing the speed and completeness of relapse recovery in people with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS).
The study used CombiRx data to assess the time to recovery from the initial on-trial relapse. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox regression models were employed to explore the impact of patient factors on unconfirmed and confirmed relapse recovery times.
About 1,008 patients with 240 relapses were examined. The median time to relapse recovery was 111 days. The majority of recoveries occurred within 1 year of relapse onset. Specifically,202 out of 240 (84%) individuals recovered during follow-up, 161 out of 202 (80%) within 180 days, and 189 out of 202 (94%) within 365 days. Only relapse severity was linked to relapse recovery.
The study found MS relapse recovery takes up to a year, and only relapse severity affects recovery speed.
Source: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13524585231202320
