Clinical Medicine Insights: Therapeutics

Multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic inflammatory-degenerative illness of the central nervous system (CNS), remains at the moment a treatable but incurable disease. Currently available disease-modifying agents (DMA-s), the majority of which are being injected, mainly relieve the inflammatory phase of MS with little beneficial effect, if any, in halting neurodegeneration. Cladribine is an immunosuppressive agent that can be administered orally and by cycles of short-course dosing as opposed to continuous administration. Cladribine has been shown to be effective in reducing inflammatory activity of MS but much remains unknown regarding its potential beyond the control of CNS inflammation. In addition, knowledge on the safety profile of cladribine in MS is limited. Data from on going clinical studies and registries on its safety profile will shed more light on the actual benefit/risk ratio of cladribine.