Objectives
COMBAT-MS is a research project initiated in 2016 with a grant from PCORI, a US federal grantee that funds patient-centered clinical research.
On PCORI's website you will find more information about the initial phase of the project, which is entitled: Rituximab in multiple sclerosis: A comparative study on effectiveness, safety, and patient reported outcomes, and under "Project" you will find a summary of the results from this part. The initial phase was conducted in collaboration with Kaiser Permanente Southern California.
Continued research is now being conducted on the clinical data that has been generated to clarify disease mechanisms and to better understand various aspects of the disease course of MS over longer periods of time. This work is carried out with support from the Swedish Research Council, the Stockholm Region, the Brain Foundation, the Wallenberg Foundation, the Erling Persson Foundation and the EU.
Responsible (principal investigator, PI):
Fredrik Piehl, MS neurologist, professor, senior physician
Karolinska University Hospital and Karolinska Institutet
Stockholm, Sweden
The objective of the initial phase (funded by PCORI) of COMBAT-MS was to compare rituximab treatment (RTX) of MS with approved disease-modifying treatments (DMTs) in terms of effectiveness, safety, tolerance and patient satisfaction.
In this part we studied outcomes over 3 and 5 years for:
Those who initiated a first DMT between 2011 and 2018, and those who had a previous DMT but made a first treatment switch in the same period.