Therapy with cladribine is efficient and safe in patients previously treated with natalizumab.

BACKGROUND

The humanized anti-α4 integrin monoclonal antibody natalizumab has proven to be very effective in patients with highly active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), but harbors the risk of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). Recently, new therapeutic options have become available for patients with high risk of developing PML while on natalizumab treatment. One of these new therapeutics is the oral synthetic purine analogue cladribine. In order to determine whether therapy with cladribine is effective and safe in patients with MS who previously had been treated with natalizumab, we analyzed clinical, radiological, and laboratory data of 17 patients whose disease modifying treatment (DMT) was switched from natalizumab to cladribine.

METHODS

A total of 17 patients with prior natalizumab treatment were switched to a DMT with cladribine because of a John Cunningham virus (JCV) antibody index above 1.5 (

RESULTS

The median duration of cladribine treatment between February 2018 and April 2019 amounted to 9.7 months (range: 1.5-15 months). None of our 17 patients presented with a clinical relapse. Only two patients showed a new T2 lesion on brain MRI, but without any signs of PML. As expected, reduction of lymphocyte count was frequent in cladribine-treated patients, but only four patients exhibited lymphopenia grade 2 (500-800/µl).

CONCLUSIONS

In our cohort the switch from natalizumab to cladribine treatment was effective and safe. So far, no serious adverse events other than lymphopenia have been observed, especially no cases of PML.

Informations de copyright

© The Author(s), 2019.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Conflict of interest statement: TS received honoraria for lecturing and travel expenses for attending meetings from Bayer Vital, Biogen, Merck Serono, Novartis, Roche, and Sanofi. KWS received speaker’s fees and/or travel grants from Merck Serono and UCB. SM received honoraria for lecturing from Bayer, Biogen, Celgene, Merck Serono, Novartis, Roche, Teva, and Sanofi-Genzyme and financial research support from Novartis and Roche. EV received honoraria for lecturing from Bayer, Biogen, Celgene, Merck Serono, Novartis, Roche, and Sanofi-Genzyme and financial research support from Novartis and Roche. MS received honoraria for lecturing or consultancy from Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Bayer Healthcare, Biogen, CSL Behring, Grifols, Merck Serono, Novartis, Roche, Sanofi-Genzyme, Takeda, and Teva and research support from Merck Serono and Sanofi-Genzyme.