The guest of Medexpress is prof. Monika Adamczyk-Sowa, president of the Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology Section of the PTN.
Światowy Dzień SM
Reform of drug programs - recommendations of neurologists
Published May 30, 2022 12:41
- As the disease affects young adults, multiple sclerosis is an important disease from a socio-economic point of view.
- In recent years, there has been a revolution in treatment options due to the introduction of new immunomodulating therapies.
- We need to meet the news in MS treatment models that are in line with international recommendations.
- So far we have relied on the escalation model - initially we used drugs with moderate effectiveness. When the patient's condition deteriorated neurologically, we resorted to more effective therapies.
- For several years, international bodies have postulated the possibility of including induction drugs in immunomodulating therapy from the very beginning. We want to suppress the disease, stop it, so as not to wait for it to worsen.
- A very important point for many years has been the relaxation of the criteria for inclusion in second-line therapy, based at the moment on administrative provisions that are completely inadequate when it comes to international recommendations, deviating from the Chpl.
- We want a patient who has disease activity that implies a risk of progression to be enrolled in highly effective therapy when that activity occurs.
- Another change is access to treatment in groups of patients for whom we have not been able to treat so far, I mean the secondary-progressive form, for which the drug is registered but is still not reimbursed in Poland.
- I think this evolutionary model is always more affordable and causes less perturbation in terms of implementing changes.
