Treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: current and future algorithms.

term outcomes. A long-term study examined survival in a cohort of patients (n = 372) who had participated in a pivotal randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial of interferon beta in relapsing-remitting MS [5] . After a median of 21.1 years from the time of enrollment, 98% of patients were identified and 81 deaths were recorded. Early treatment was associated with prolonged survival, as evidenced by a 46.8% reduction in the hazard rate of allcause mortality among patients treated with interferon versus placebo.