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“Knowing what is normal is an important validation step along the way. For our collaboration, we chose well-characterized cohorts of stable patients, but also patients without relapses and progressive MS, therefore evolving considerably on the scale of the We had a group of about 50 patients with over about 400 longitudinal samples, plus an acute inflammatory control cohort.
Currently, multiple sclerosis (MS) presents a somewhat unique situation for clinical researchers. The treatment paradigm is robust, with over 15 disease-modifying therapies available for disease management, however, long-term measurement of disability and disease progression can be a difficult to quantify aspect of MS. This has led to an extensive effort to expand the existing panel of biomarkers to allow for more robust measurement of progression.
Jens Kuhle, MD, PhD, senior physician and head of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at Basel University Hospital, is one such clinician involved in these efforts. At the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) 2022 congress, October 26-28, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, he and his colleagues presented several datasets displaying the results of his group’s collaboration with Octave Bioscience, a company focused on providing fully integrated precision care solutions for MS.1.2
The first of these presentations suggested that the use of multivariate models of a personalized immunoassay panel that measures the concentration of 20 proteins could classify healthy patients from MS subtypes, from clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) to other MS phenotypes, as well as IBS and relapsing MS in progressive MS. MRS. Kuhle and colleagues noted that this ability to differentially diagnose MS from overlapping pathophysiology, as well as to distinguish MS subtypes from one another, could improve the therapeutic management of MS. patients in clinical practice.1 Additionally, they presented evidence suggesting a separation of MS progressors from non-progressors with a panel of markers that extends beyond the well-known candidates of neurofilament lumen and glial fibrillary acidic protein. ).2
Kuhle caught up NeurologyLive® to talk about these efforts and the larger panel of approximately 3000 proteins that will be assayed with their samples and an independent validation cohort.2 Kuhle noted that this understanding of MS progression and its effect on the serum proteome has the potential to lead to a new method of quantifying disease progression.
