Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Mar 2012
Randomized Controlled TrialRelationship between early clinical characteristics and long term disability outcomes: 16 year cohort study (follow-up) of the pivotal interferon β-1b trial in multiple sclerosis.
Evaluating the long term benefit of therapy in multiple sclerosis (MS) is challenging. Although randomised controlled trials (RCTs) demonstrate therapeutic benefits on short term outcomes, the relationship between these outcomes and late disability is not established. ⋯ Although on-trial change in some short term clinical measures correlated with long term physical and disability outcomes, the proportion of the variance explained by single commonly employed on-study variables was often small or undetectable. Better correlations were observed for several baseline measures, suggesting that long term outcome in MS may be largely determined early in the disease course. Trial registration number http://Clinical Trials.gov, study registration NCT00206635.