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Heterogeneity of MS Makes New Disease Biomarker Discovery Difficult
The treatment landscape for multiple sclerosis continues to get more complex month to month, which makes biomarker discovery increasingly important for treating the disease, said Suhayl Dhib-Jalbut, MD, professor at the Rutgers University Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, during his session at the 2014 Joint ACTRIMS-ECTRIMS Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.
The treatment landscape for multiple sclerosis (MS) continues to get more complex month to month, which makes biomarker discovery increasingly important for treating the disease, according to Suhayl Dhib-Jalbut, MD, professor at the Rutgers University Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
There are many significant reasons why biomarker discovery in MS is crucial, including early diagnosis, assessing disease activity, and predicting treatment response and treatment complications, Dhib-Jalbut said during his talk “Biomarkers of Treatment Response to MS Disease Therapies,” at the 2014 Joint ACTRIMS-ECTRIMS Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts from September 10-13.
For instance, alemtuzumab — which is not available in the United States, but is available elsewhere in the world — is associated with autoimmune complications in patients.
The biomarkers that are known to be clinically useful for monitoring MS therapy include:
Biomarker
Condition
JC virus assay
Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy risk with natalizumab
Neutralizing antibodies
Interferon unresponsiveness
HLA DR & DQ alleles, transforming growth factor beta/interleukin (IL)-18
Glatiramer response
IL-10/IL-17/interferon-beta
Interferon response
IL-21
Alemtuzumab autoimmunity
CD 56Bright
Daclizumab therapy
MRI
Interferon response
However, disease heterogeneity is a challenge to biomarker discovery, according to Dhib-Jalbut. For instance, the disease is pathologically heterogeneous, there are inconsistent immune findings, and variable clinical courses.
Furthermore, the fact that response to disease-modifying drugs varies from patient to patient is not only important to keep in mind when choosing which therapy to use, but it makes finding new biomarkers difficult, he said.
During his talk, Dhib-Jalbut highlighted potentially useful biomarkers such as the VLA-4 integrin, CD34 cells, and cerebral spinal fluid, for natalizumab. Also, the CD4:CD8 ratio and decreased T-cells or B-cells could be useful with fingolimod.
The Importance of Examining and Preventing Atrial Fibrillation
August 29th 2023At this year’s American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD Prevention, Emelia J. Benjamin, MD, ScM, delivered the Honorary Fellow Award Lecture, “The Imperative to Focus on the Prevention of Atrial Fibrillation,” as the recipient of this year’s Honorary Fellow of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology award.
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Key Indicators of Myasthenia Gravis Disease Progression Reduced With Efgartigimod
April 18th 2025Research presented at the recent annual meeting of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy highlights outcomes among patients who have anti-acetylcholine receptor antibody-positive myasthenia gravis that include reduced exacerbations and need for immunoglobulin.
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Promoting Equity in Public Health: Policy, Investment, and Community Engagement Solutions
June 28th 2022On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, on the core takeaways of his keynote session at AHIP 2022 on public health policy and other solutions to promote equitable health and well-being.
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Bias Reduction, Better Access Key to COVID-19 Equity Gains
April 14th 2025Interventions that target enhancing health care equity among communities disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic can be improved by including comprehensive needs assessments at the patient, provider, and health system levels.
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Orca-T showed lower rates of graft-vs-host disease or infection compared with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) or acute leukemias in the Precision-T trial, Caspian Oliai, MD, MS, UCLA Bone Marrow Transplantation Stem Cell Processing Center, said.
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