Early evidence of disease activity during fingolimod predicts medium-term inefficacy in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

BACKGROUND Fingolimod (FTY) is an effective second-line drug for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, with ~50% patients showing no evidence of disease activity (NEDA) after 2 years. Nonetheless, the early identification of non-responders is extremely important, to promptly address them to more aggressive drugs. OBJECTIVES This cohort study evaluates FTY medium-term effectiveness, searching for early markers of treatment failure. PATIENTS AND METHODS Three hundred eighty patients starting FTY were enrolled and classified according to NEDA and time to first relapse criteria at 4-year follow-up. Logistic and Cox regression analyses were applied to identify early predictors of non-response. RESULTS At 4 years, 65.6% of patients were free from relapses and 35.4% had NEDA. Female gender was associated with a higher risk of non-response. Moreover, evidence of clinical and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) activity during the first year of treatment was highly predictive of disease activity in the follow-up: the positive predictive value for non-response was 0.74 for the presence of ⩾1 relapse, 0.73 for the presence of ⩾1 active MRI lesion, and 0.83 for the presence of both clinical and MRI activity. CONCLUSIONS FTY effectiveness persists at medium-term follow-up; a close monitoring during the first year of treatment is warranted to early identify non-responders requiring treatment optimization.