, results of a recent large, single-center study show. The rate of switching to second-line disease-modifying therapy was consequently about 50% higher among the obese children in the study, which included a total of 453 pediatric patients.
The link between obesity and treatment response suggests that the management of these younger patients with MS could be improved through weight loss or body mass index (BMI)-adjusted dosing, according to Peter Huppke, MD, of Georg August University in Göttingen, Germany, and co-investigators.
“The findings do not indicate that obesity promotes greater disease activity, but pharmacokinetic factors are more likely associated with treatment response,” Dr. Huppke and co-authors said in a report on their study, which was published online ahead of print July 15 in JAMA Neurology.
This is believed to be the first-ever study to find an association between BMI and treatment response in pediatric patients with MS, according to the authors, who said they also confirmed a link between obesity and MS.
Specifically, obesity increased MS susceptibility by two-fold as compared with healthy controls, a finding that they said adds to a small but growing body of evidence that high BMI is associated with increased risk of the disease in these younger individuals.
This retrospective study included 453 pediatric patients with MS treated at the Center for MS in Childhood and Adolescence in Göttingen, Germany between 1990 and 2016. About two-thirds were female and the mean age at MS diagnosis was about 14 years.
Of those patients, 126 (27.8%) were classified as obese based on a BMI greater than the 90th percentile, according to the report.
Dr. Huppke and co-investigators found that high BMI was linked to a significantly increased odds of pediatric MS, with odds ratios of 2.19 (95% CI, 1.5-3.1; P < 0.001) in girls and 2.14 (95% CI, 1.3-3.5; P = 0.003) in boys.
A total of 277 of these pediatric patients received a first-line disease-modifying therapy for 6 months or longer, including 249 treated with interferon beta and 51 treated with glatiramer.
Relapses were more common in obese patients, according to the report. with an annualized relapse rate of 1.29, compared to just 0.72 for those who were not overweight (P < 0.001).
Consequently, likelihood of receiving a second-line treatment was about 1.5 times higher in the obese or extremely obese patients, investigators said.
“A healthy weight may potentially optimize treatment outcomes and reduce disease-related burden and health care costs,” they concluded in the report, adding that BMI-adjusted dosing may “increase the value” of first-line disease-modifying therapies.
Dr. Huppke reported disclosures related to Bayer Health Care, Merck Serono, and Novartis not associated with the current study.
SOURCE: Huppke B, et al. JAMA Neurol. 2019 Jul 15. doi: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2019.1997