Prolonged-Release Fampridine Efficacy on Fatigue in Patients with MS

Prolonged-release fampridine (PR-FAM) is currently approved to treat walking disability in adult patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). And according to a study, it may improve other symptoms as well, including fatigue, depression, cognition, and quality of life (QoL).

The FAMILY study, a multicenter, prospective, observational, real-world cohort study, evaluated patients with MS receiving PR-FAM in the outpatient setting; treatment was conducted per PR-FAM’s local prescribing information for six months. Assessments were conducted at baseline and three and six months to evaluate changes in fatigue (Modified Fatigue Impact Scale [MFIS]), cognition (Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test [PASAT]), depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II [BDI-II]) and QoL (MS International Quality-of-Life questionnaire [MusiQoL] and Multiple Sclerosis Impact Scale [MSIS-29], PHYS and PSYCH subscales).

Overall, 102 eligible patients from eight sites in Greece were analyzed; 10 discontinued the study, and 92 completed it. At six months, improvements, compared with baseline, were observed in PASAT-3′′ (P=0.044), MFIS (P<0.001), BDI-II (P<0.001), MusiQoL (P<0.001), and MSIS-29-PHYS (P=0.012) and MSIS-PSYCH (P<0.001). Positive changes were identified after three months in PASAT-3”, MFIS (P=0.020), BDI-II (P=0.034), MusiQoL (P=0.001), MSIS-29-PHYS, and MSIS-29-PSYCH (P<0.001).

“This real-life observational study provides new data to the current literature in support of the benefits of PR-FAM on broader MS aspects beyond walking ability in terms of cognition, fatigue, depression, and overall QoL in a large and heterogeneous group of Greek patients under conditions of everyday clinical practice. Among them, improvements in fatigue, depression, and QoL are shown to be more pronounced in patients also demonstrating a significant improvement in their walking ability as compared with the rest of the population, implying a potential advantage of this patient subgroup with regard to clinical response to PR-FAM,” the researchers concluded.