In 2022, Dr Izanne Roos, University of Melbourne was awarded a 3-year Trish Translational Research Project Grant titled, “Personalised therapy to prevent disability in aggressive multiple sclerosis”.
In the final year of her Research Project, Dr Roos’ research has focused on two key areas: predicting MS severity and understanding the benefits of high-efficacy treatments.
Using the RMH Neuroimmunology Centre cohort, Dr Roos successfully validated a prognostic model developed in Barcelona, Spain, that creates an individualised prediction model for the 10-year risk of eight relevant MS milestones (relapses, MRI activity and disability accumulation). This can be used in future to gauge an individual’s future risk of disease severity. These findings were presented at ECTRIMS 2024, and a scientific paper is in the final stages of revision.
The impact of early, high-efficacy MS treatment is very important. Dr Roos investigated whether the most effective MS treatments provide benefits to all patients, not just those at highest risk of severe disease. Using data from the international MSBase registry, and working with the French (OFSEP) registry, it was found that people treated continuously with high-efficacy medications had fewer relapses and slower disability progression, regardless of how severe their MS was expected to be. This suggests that these treatments should be widely available early in the disease to help all patients. These findings were also presented at ECTRIMS 2024, and a research paper is currently under review.
These findings contribute critical, valuable insights to help clinicians make better, more personalised treatment decisions for people living with MS, with direct implications for optimising early therapeutic decisions.
The overarching conclusion of Dr Roos’ Research is that the most effective currently available intervention to limit disability in people with MS is the early initiation of therapy, and use of high efficacy therapies.
“Yet again a Research Project funded by the Trish Foundation has made a tremendous impact, as has been the case so many times over the past 25 years,” said Foundation Chair Carol Langsford. “Our volunteer team is honoured to continue to make such an important contribution.”