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What to Expect from Your Disease-Modifying Therapy

DMTs, on the other hand, are not designed to help day-to-day symptoms, nor can you necessarily tell on your own whether or not they are working. DMTs are... approved to reduce the number of relapses, and sometimes to delay progression of disability. MS may lead to disability due to the accumulation of neurological problems with each relapse (after a relapse you may not fully return back to your previous baseline) or due to independent, slow progressive damage to nerves in the brain and spinal cord. Since everyone’s MS is different and since we don’t yet have biomarkers or predictors of how your MS will be in the future, when we start you on a certain DMT, we don’t know if you would have done…

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 Approved and Emerging Disease Modifying Therapies on Neurodegeneration in Multiple Sclerosis

A variety of DMTs are currently available via a few different routes of administration (oral, injectable, infusion) for patients with MS. Although it is difficult to generalize a treatment’s true benefits or drawbacks across all patients.

 Paving the way towards an effective treatment for multiple sclerosis: advances in cell therapy

However, by acting in an immunologically nonspecific manner and suppressing one or more branches of the immune response, these treatments have the potential to cause serious adverse effects. In this context, cell therapy appears to be a promising strategy.

Articles of Interest

Disease Modifying Therapies: Altering the MS Course

Since the mid-1990s, disease modifying therapies (DMTs) have been our first line interventions in the fight against MS. But what exactly do we mean by “DMT,” and how are they different from other drugs? Put simply, DMTs are pharmaceutical treatments that alter the natural history of the disease itself.

Disease-Modifying Therapies in Multiple Sclerosis: Overview and Treatment Considerations

The goal of MS disease-modifying therapy is to reduce the early clinical and subclinical disease activity that eventually contributes to long-term disability.

Long-Term Treatments for Multiple Sclerosis

The first three long-term treatments for multiple sclerosis (MS) became available in the early to mid 1990s and were dubbed the “A-B-C” drugs because of their brand names: Avonex®, Betaseron®, and Copaxone®

Multiple sclerosis: disease-modifying therapies

An overview of the available evidence for each disease-modifying therapy for multiple sclerosis, when they are indicated, as well as each stage of patient care.

What’s the Access? Disease-Modifying Therapies for Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis poses a significant economic burden—on those living with MS, our health care systems, the Canadian economy, and broader society. For most people, DMTs can help.

Resources

MS Society

Disease modifying therapies (DMTs) aren't a cure for MS, but they can reduce how many relapses someone has and how serious they are. They can also slow down the damage caused by relapsing multiple sclerosis that builds up over time.

MS Society of Canada

These are a class of drugs that impact the underlying disease. DMTs target some aspect of the inflammatory process of MS and appear to reduce the frequency and severity of relapses; reduce the number of new lesions in the brain and spinal cord as seen on MRI, and slow down the accumulation of disability.

Multiple Sclerosis Australia

DMTs, also called immunotherapies, which work by modifying the activity of the immune system to slow the frequency and severity of attacks to the central nervous system. These medications are most often prescribed for people with relapsing-remitting MS, where evidence has demonstrated the greatest impact.

Multiple Sclerosis News Today

Disease-modifying therapies, or DMTs, are a type of treatment that can alter the course of MS — by reducing the risk of relapses, decreasing disease activity as assessed on MRI scans, and/or slowing the accumulation of MS symptoms that interfere with daily life.

Multiple Sclerosis Trust

Most DMDs are for people with relapsing remitting MS (RRMS), but there are some that are licenced for use by people with progressive MS. For people with RRMS, disease modifying drugs reduce the number of relapses you might experience as well as reducing the severity of any relapses you do have.

National MS Society

None of the DMTs are approved by the FDA for women who are pregnant or plan to become pregnant, or who are breastfeeding. It is important for women to discuss their plans for pregnancy with their healthcare provider so that they can decide together the best and safest treatment plan.