“And according to prescribing information ... this would be classified as rare, with less than 1 in 1,000,” Dr. Gillett said.
“So this led us to our objective to really assess the risk of stroke in patients treated with subcutaneous interferon beta-1a ... and the association with treatment duration and dose,” he said. “What we can conclude from [our] study is that a trend toward decreased risk of stroke for subcutaneous interferon beta-1a, compared to placebo, was observed in 17 clinical trials ... and the safety data from both clinical trials and postmarketing [surveillance] suggests that treatment with subcutaneous interferon beta-1a ... does not increase the risk of stroke in patients with MS.”
This study was supported by Merck KGaA of Darmstadt, Germany. Dr. Gillett is an employee of EMD Serono, the biopharmaceutical division of Merck KGaA.
SOURCE: Sabidó M et al. Neurology. 2018 Apr 90(15 Suppl.):S36.008.