Ana Zabalza

Vall d'Hebron Institut de Recerca

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Xavier Montalbán

Vall d'Hebron Institut de Recerca

Georgina Arrambide

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Mar Tintoré

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Breogán Rodrı́guez‐Acevedo

Vall d'Hebron Hospital Universitari

Jaume Sastre‐Garriga

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

ÁV

Ángela Vidal‐Jordana

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Jordi Río

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

ÁC

Álvaro Cobo‐Calvo

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Ingrid Galán

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Luciana Midaglia

Vall d'Hebron Institut de Recerca

Cooperative Institutions

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

182

Vall d'Hebron Hospital Universitari

132

Vall d'Hebron Institut de Recerca

111

Universitat de Barcelona

Instituto de Salud Carlos III

Hospital Del Mar

University of Melbourne

Consorci Institut D'Investigacions Biomediques August Pi I Sunyer

Hebron University

King's College London

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Frequency, symptoms, risk factors, and outcomes of autoimmune encephalitis after herpes simplex encephalitis: a prospective observational study and retrospective analysis

The Lancet Neurology (2018)

Thaís Armangué Marianna Spatola Alexandru Vlagea Simone Mattozzi Marc Cárceles-Cordon

Autoimmune encephalitis

10.1016/s1474-4422(18)30244-8

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Citations (520)

Sequential central retinal artery occlusion in two brothers: a fight to prevent blindness

Documenta Ophthalmologica (2025)

David Oliver Olaia Subirà Ana Zabalza Bernat Boy Joana Marques‐Soares

Central retinal artery

10.1007/s10633-025-10006-5

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Performance of treatment response scoring systems among patients with multiple sclerosis treated with high-efficacy therapies

Multiple Sclerosis Journal (2025)

Mariano Marrodán Augusto Sao Avilés Jordi Río Álvaro Cobo‐Calvo Victòria Fernández

Background: Predicting treatment response and disease progression in multiple sclerosis (MS) is challenging. Treatment Response Scoring Systems (TRSS) are potentially useful, but their utility in patients receiving high-efficacy therapies and very high-efficacy therapies (HET/vHET) remains unclear. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the performance of TRSS in patients treated with HET/vHET. Methods: We retrospectively studied MS patients treated with HET/vHET in an MS specialized centre. TRSS, including the Rio Score, modified Rio Score and MAGNIMS score, were applied to assess response to treatment. We evaluated the predictive value of the TRSS on disease activity and disability progression. Results: TRSS effectively predicted disease activity and progression of disability in patients treated with HET/vHET. Patients with high TRSS scores at 12 months post-HET/vHET initiation had a significantly increased risk of relapses, new lesions on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and progression of disability at 4 years. Discussion: Our findings highlight the importance of personalized treatment strategies in MS. TRSS are valuable tools for monitoring treatment response, guiding clinical decision-making and optimizing patient care.

10.1177/13524585251316471

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Novel Approaches to Treatment of Immune-Mediated Chronic Intestinal Pseudo-Obstruction

Neurology Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation (2025)

Andreu Vilaseca Paula Arranz Arnau Llauradó Ana Zabalza Elianet Fonseca

The optimal immunosuppressive treatment for autoimmune chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction (CIPO) is unknown due to lack of clinical trials. Even less data exist on treatment recommendations for patients who do not respond to first-line immunotherapy. We describe 4 patients with autoimmune CIPO treated with vedolizumab (3/4), a monoclonal antibody that interferes the lymphocyte trafficking to the gastrointestinal tract, or rituximab (1/4) who did not respond to steroids or IV immunoglobulins. We made a systematic review of previously published cases of CIPO treated with these biological agents. Vedolizumab was effective in 2 of 3 patients but failed in a child with nonparaneoplastic anti-Hu-associated CIPO, who had generalized dysautonomia. The 2 patients who responded to vedolizumab had an isolated CIPO, and they did not present neuronal antibodies. Rituximab was prescribed in a case of anti-Hu-associated, nonparaneoplastic CIPO, who showed a complete clinical response after this treatment. Our review of the literature retrieved 4 previous cases of autoimmune CIPO treated with rituximab but none treated with vedolizumab. All patients treated with rituximab had Hu antibodies. Two patients showed a clinical response to the treatment with rituximab. Our findings underscore the potential efficacy of rituximab and vedolizumab in the management of autoimmune CIPO refractory to first-line treatments.

Intestinal pseudo-obstruction

10.1212/nxi.0000000000200369

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Secondary organising pneumonia associated to COVID-19 infection in patients with central nervous system inflammatory demyelinating diseases treated with anti-CD20 therapies

Multiple Sclerosis Journal (2024)

René Carvajal Breogán Rodrı́guez‐Acevedo Lorena García-Vasco Ana Zabalza Helena Ariño

Organizing pneumonia (OP), an interstitial lung disease, has been observed in patients with inflammatory demyelinating diseases (IDDs) treated with anti-CD20, particularly after COVID-19, but data are limited.

Demyelinating disease

10.1177/13524585241297038

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Fitbeat: COVID-19 Estimation based on Wristband Heart Rate

arXiv (Cornell University) (2021)

Shuo Liu Jing Han Estela Laporta Spyridon Kontaxis Shaoxiong Sun

This study investigates the potential of deep learning methods to identify individuals with suspected COVID-19 infection using remotely collected heart-rate data. The study utilises data from the ongoing EU IMI RADAR-CNS research project that is investigating the feasibility of wearable devices and smart phones to monitor individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS), depression or epilepsy. Aspart of the project protocol, heart-rate data was collected from participants using a Fitbit wristband. The presence of COVID-19 in the cohort in this work was either confirmed through a positive swab test, or inferred through the self-reporting of a combination of symptoms including fever, respiratory symptoms, loss of smell or taste, tiredness and gastrointestinal symptoms. Experimental results indicate that our proposed contrastive convolutional auto-encoder (contrastive CAE), i. e., a combined architecture of an auto-encoder and contrastive loss, outperforms a conventional convolutional neural network (CNN), as well as a convolutional auto-encoder (CAE) without using contrastive loss. Our final contrastive CAE achieves 95.3% unweighted average recall, 86.4% precision, anF1 measure of 88.2%, a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 90.6% on a testset of 19 participants with MS who reported symptoms of COVID-19. Each of these participants was paired with a participant with MS with no COVID-19 symptoms.

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak

10.48550/arxiv.2104.09263

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Citations (1)

21092. MEDIR LA CADENA LIGERA DE LOS NEUROFILAMENTOS MEJORA LA CAPACIDAD PREDICTIVA DE LOS SCORES DE RESPUESTA AL TRATAMIENTO EN ESCLEROSIS MÚLTIPLE

Neurology Perspectives (2024)

V. Fernández Agustín Pappolla P. Carbonell Mirabent Miguel Rodríguez‐Barranco María Paula Juárez

10.1016/s2667-0496(24)00224-2

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P12.20.B [18F]FDG PET/CT BRAIN SCAN IN THE EVALUATION OF NEUROTOXICITY IN PATIENTS WITH DIFFUSE LARGE B-CELL LYMPHOMA TREATED WITH CAR-T

Neuro-Oncology (2024)

Stela S. Asadurova Carles Lorenzo‐Bosquet M. Simó Helena Ariño Andreu Vilaseca

Abstract BACKGROUND Neurotoxicity is one of the serious and life-threatening complications of CAR-T treatment in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Our objective is to identify the findings in brain PET/CT, their evolution over time, and their clinical correlation. We also aim to compare the sensitivity of PET/CT with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). MATERIAL AND METHODS This prospective study includes 33 patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma treated with CAR-T therapy. Whole-body and brain [18F]FDG PET/CT scans were performed pre-treatment and 30 days post-therapy. In cases of suspected immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS), urgent structural imaging (CT or MRI) and [18F]FDG PET/CT brain scans were conducted, among other tests. RESULTS The mean age was 62±12 years, with a male-to-female ratio of 19:14. 70% of patients (23/33) developed grade 1, 2, or 3 cytokine release syndrome (CRS). 27% (9/33), all with prior CRS, showed symptoms of ICANS (3/9 G1, 3/9 G2 and 3/9 G3 ICANS). The most common symptoms were tremor, disorientation, and bradypsychia, starting on average on the 7th day post-infusion (range 1 to 10). Urgent [18F]FDG PET/CT brain scans were performed on 7 of the 9 ICANS patients, showing diffuse cortical hypometabolism compatible with encephalopathy in 5 (5/7) and no significant findings in 2/7. At the 30-day post-treatment evaluation, complete normalization was observed in 2/5 patients, improvement with persistent mild global cortical hypometabolism in 2/5, and one patient (1/5) died before the 30 days (with G3 ICANS and severe cortical and subcortical hypometabolism on PET imaging). Urgent brain MRI was performed on the 7 patients with ICANS and urgent [18F]FDG PET brain scans, and it was normal in 5/7 and pathological in 2/7 (both with grade 3 ICANS). CONCLUSION [18F]FDG PET/CT brain scan is useful for the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with CAR-T related neurotoxicity (ICANS) and shows greater sensitivity than MRI. Future studies should determine the relationship between acute phase PET findings and long-term prognosis.

Neurotoxicity

10.1093/neuonc/noae144.233

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1298Associations of DMT therapies with COVID-19 severity in multiple sclerosis

International Journal of Epidemiology (2021)

Steve Simpson Edward De Brouwer Tomáš Kalinčík Nick Rijke Jan Hillert

Abstract Background People with multiple sclerosis (MS) are a vulnerable group for severe COVID-19, particularly those taking immunosuppressive disease-modifying therapies (DMTs). We examined the characteristics of COVID-19 severity in an international sample of people with MS. Methods Data from 12 data-sources in 28 countries were aggregated (sources could include patients from 1-12 countries). Demographic (age, sex), clinical (MS phenotype, disability), and DMT (untreated, alemtuzumab, cladribine, dimethyl-fumarate, glatiramer-acetate, interferon, natalizumab, ocrelizumab, rituximab, siponimod, other) covariates were queried, alongside COVID-19 hospitalisation, admission to ICU, requiring artificial ventilation, and death. Characteristics of outcomes were assessed in patients with suspected/confirmed COVID-19 using multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression, adjusted for age, sex, MS phenotype, and EDSS. Results 657 (28.1%) with suspected and 1,683 (61.9%) with confirmed COVID-19 were analysed. Among suspected+confirmed/confirmed-only COVID-19, 20.9%/26.9% were hospitalised, 5.4%/7.2% were admitted to ICU, 4.1%/5.4% required artificial ventilation, and 3.2%/3.9% died. Older age, progressive MS-phenotype, and higher disability were associated with worse COVID-19 outcomes. Compared to dimethyl-fumarate, ocrelizumab and rituximab were associated with hospitalisation (aOR=1.56,95%CI=1.01-2.41; aOR=2.43,95%CI=1.48-4.02) and ICU admission (aOR=2.30,95%CI=0.98-5.39; aOR=3.93,95%CI=1.56-9.89), though only rituximab was associated with higher risk of artificial ventilation (aOR=4.00,95%CI=1.54-10.39). Importantly, associations persisted on restriction to confirmed COVID-19 cases. No associations were observed between DMTs and death. Conclusions Despite the cross-sectional design of this study, the internal and external consistency of these results with prior studies suggests their use may be a risk factor for more severe COVID-19. Key messages Anti-CD20 DMTs may be associated with worse COVID-19 severity amongst people with multiple sclerosis.

Ocrelizumab

Glatiramer acetate

Natalizumab

10.1093/ije/dyab168.604

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Citations (6)

Correction to: Treatment response scoring systems to assess long-term prognosis in self-injectable DMTs relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis patients

Journal of Neurology (2021)

Jordi Río Àlex Rovira Claudio Gasperini Mar Tintoré Luca Prosperini

Relapsing remitting

Neuroradiology

10.1007/s00415-021-10906-x

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