Association of age and disease duration with comorbidities and disability: A study of the Swiss Multiple Sclerosis Registry.

BACKGROUND

While comorbidities increase with age, duration of multiple sclerosis (MS) leads to disability accumulation in persons with MS. The influence of ageing vis-a-vis MS duration remains largely unexplored. We studied the independent associations of ageing and MS duration with disability and comorbidities in the Swiss MS Registry participants.

METHODS

Self-reported data was cross-sectionally analyzed using confounder-adjusted logistic regression models for 6 outcomes: cancer, type 2 diabetes (T2D), hypertension, cardiac diseases, depression, and having at least moderate or severe gait disability. Using cubic splines, we explored non-linear changes in risk shapes.

RESULTS

Among 1615 participants age was associated with cardiac diseases (OR 1.05, 95% CI [1.02, 2.08]), hypertension (OR 1.08, 95% CI [1.06, 2.10]), T2D (OR 1.10, 95%CI [1.05, 1.16]) and cancer (OR 1.04, 95% CI [1.01, 1.07]). MS duration was not associated with comorbidities, except for cardiac diseases (OR 1.03, 95% CI [1.00, 1.06]). MS duration and age were independently associated with having at least moderate gait disability (OR 1.06, 95% CI [1.04, 1.07]; OR 1.04, 95% CI [1.02, 1.05], respectively), and MS duration was associated with severe gait disability (OR 1.05, 95% CI [1.03, 1.08]). The spline analysis suggested a non-linear increase of having at least moderate gait disability with age.

CONCLUSIONS

Presence of comorbidities was largely associated with age only. Having at least moderate gait disability was associated with both age and MS duration, while having severe gait disabity was associated with MS duration only.

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of Competing Interest Mina Stanikić reports employment by Roche branch in Serbia, Roche d.o.o., from February 2019 to February 2020. Anke Salmen has received speaker honoraria and/or travel compensation for activities with Bristol Myers Squibb, Novartis, Roche and research support of Baasch Medicus Foundation and the Swiss MS society, not related to this work. Andrew Chan has served onadvisory boards for, and received funding for travel or speaker honoraria from Actelion-Janssen,Almirall, Bayer, Biogen, Celgene, Sanofi-Genzyme, Merck, Novartis, Roche and Teva, all for hospitalresearch funds; and research support from Biogen, Genzyme and UCB. Andrew Chan is associate editor ofthe European Journal of Neurology and serves on the editorial board for Clinical and Translational Neuroscience and as topic editor for the Journal of International Medical Research. Jens Kuhle has received speaker fees, research support, travel support, and/or served on advisory boards by Swiss MS Society, Swiss National Research Foundation (320030_189140/1), University of Basel, Progressive MS Alliance, Bayer, Biogen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Celgene, Merck, Novartis, Octave Bioscience, Roche, Sanofi. Christian P Kamm has received honoraria for lectures as well as research support from Biogen, Novartis, Almirall, Teva, Merck, Sanofi Genzyme, Roche, Janssen, Eli Lilly, Celgene and the Swiss MS Society (SMSG). The employer of Caroline Pot has received speaker honoraria and/or travel compensation for her activities with Biogen, Merck, Novartis, Roche and Sanofi Genzyme, and research support of SFNS, Biaggi Fondation and the Swiss MS society not related to this work. Pasquale Calabrese has received honoraria for speaking at scientific meetings, serving at scientific advisory boards and consulting activities from Abbvie, Actelion, Almirall, Bayer-Schering, Biogen, EISAI, Lundbeck, Merck Serono, Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis and Teva. He also receives research grants from the Swiss Multiple Sclerosis Society (SMSG), and the Swiss National Research Foundation. The employer of Chiara Zecca and Claudio Gobbi receives sup-port for advisor activities, speaking or grants from Celgene, Genzyme, Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Roche, and grants from Abbvie, Almirall, Biogen Idec, Celgene, Genzyme, Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Roche, Teva Pharma. Sandra Schafroth, Sabin Ammann, Marco Kaufmann, Stephanie Rodgers, Christina Haag, Zina-Mary Manjaly and Viktor von Wyl declare no competing interests.