Rituximab in the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Experience of a tertiary care hospital in Mexico

Background: Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, autoimmune, degenerative disease. Therapies targeting B-cells have been shown to be effective in its treatment; however, there are few studies evaluating their efficacy in the Mexican population. Objective: To evaluate the clinical impact of rituximab in patients with newly-diagnosed relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). Material and methods: Real life, descriptive study, in which rituximab was evaluated as treatment for RRMS over a 24-month period. Pre-and post-treatment clinical variables were analyzed; a comparison was made between treatment-naive and non -treatment-naive patients. Results: Twenty-eight patients with RRMS were included. Mean age at diagnosis was 30.7 years, and 22 patients were treatment-naive (78.5 %). After 24 months, there was a mean reduction of 1.8 points in the EDSS scale and a decrease in the number of active lesions on magnetic resonance imaging; a significant difference in both variables could be established (p < 0.05). However, the logistic regression model did not show a relationship between the variables for achiev-ing NEDA-3 criteria. No serious adverse events were observed. Conclusions: Treatment with rituximab resulted in significant clinical and radiological improvement in treatment-naive and non-treatment-naive Mexican patients with RRMS.