BACKGROUND Gray matter magnetic resonance imaging T2 hypointensity, a marker of iron deposition, is associated with clinical impairment and brain atrophy in cross-sectional studies of multiple sclerosis. Treatment with intramuscular interferon beta-1a limits brain atrophy in the second year of treatment. OBJECTIVE To test whether T2 hypointensity predicts brain atrophy and whether interferon ...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to examine the cost-effectiveness of preventive treatment with interferon beta (IFNB) versus no preventive treatment in patients with multiple sclerosis. METHODS The setting for this study was the United Kingdom. A lifetime Markov process model was constructed to model the average quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and the costs of both treatment str...

BACKGROUND Gender appears to play a role in incidence and disease course of multiple sclerosis (MS). OBJECTIVE The objective was to determine whether male and female patients with MS respond differently to interferon-beta treatment in terms of reduction in relapse rates. METHODS We included all 2033 patients with relapsing-remitting MS who started treatment with interferon-beta from 1996 to...

BACKGROUND Malignant gliomas recur even after extensive surgery and chemo-radiotherapy. Although a relatively novel chemotherapeutic agent, temozolomide (TMZ), has demonstrated promising activity against recurrent glioma, the effects last only a few months and drug resistance develops thereafter in most cases. Induction of O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) in tumors is considered to...

Rhinoviruses are the major trigger of acute asthma exacerbations and asthmatic subjects are more susceptible to these infections. To investigate the underlying mechanisms of this increased susceptibility, we examined virus replication and innate responses to rhinovirus (RV)-16 infection of primary bronchial epithelial cells from asthmatic and healthy control subjects. Viral RNA expression and l...

OBJECTIVE To assess efficacy, safety, and tolerability of every-other-day interferon beta-1b treatment in patients with a first clinical event suggestive of multiple sclerosis (MS) (clinically isolated syndrome). METHODS We conducted a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Patients with a first clinical demyelinating event and at least two clinically silent brain MR...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory autoimmune disease characterized by imbalanced immune regulatory networks, and MS patient-derived T effector cells are inefficiently suppressed through regulatory T cells (Treg), a phenomenon known as Treg resistance. In the current study we investigated T cell function in MS patients before and after interferon-beta therapy. We compared cytokine profi...

BACKGROUND Myxovirus resistance protein A (MxA) is a molecule induced after interferon-beta injection, mostly used to evaluate its bioactivity. There is little available data on clinical utility of baseline MxA mRNA status. The objective of the study is to investigate whether baseline MxA mRNA expression can predict relapse and disease progression in multiple sclerosis patients treated with int...

a unique interferon-b signaling axis mediated via the receptor IFNAR1. Nat. Immunol. 14, 901–907. 8. Brierley, M. M., Marchington, K. L., Jurisica, I., Fish, E. N. (2006) Identification of GASdependent interferon-sensitive target genes whose transcription is STAT2-dependent but ISGF3-independent. FEBS J. 273, 1569–1581. 9. Krakauer, M., Sorensen, P., Khademi, M., Olsson, T., Sellebjerg, F. (200...