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Published on: December 9, 2015
Ocrelizumab Extended Interval Dosing in Multiple Sclerosis in Times of COVID-19
Leoni Rolfes1, Marc Pawlitzki1, Steffen Pfeuffer1
1From the Department of Neurology with Institute of Translational Neurology (L.R., M.P., S.P., C.N., L.K., H.W.), University Hospital Muenster, Germany; Institute for Biometrics and Bioinformatic (A.L.), Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany; Department for Neurology (R.P., C.K., K.K., R.R.), University Hospital Essen, Germany; Focus Program Translational Neurosciences (FTN) and Immunology (FZI) (K.P., S.B., F.Z.), Rhine Main Neuroscience Network (rmn2), Department of Neurology, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany; Department of Neurology (C.W., Y.G., M.S.), University Hospital Cologne, Germany; and Department of Neurology (J.I., O.A., T.R., S.G.M.), Heinrich-Heine University, Duesseldorf, Germany.
Objective:
To evaluate the clinical consequences of extended interval dosing (EID) of ocrelizumab in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
Methods:
In our retrospective, multicenter cohort study, we compared patients with RRMS on EID (defined as ≥4-week delay of dose interval) with a control group on standard interval dosing (SID) at the same period (January to December 2020).
Results:
Three hundred eighteen patients with RRMS were longitudinally evaluated in 5 German centers. One hundred sixteen patients received ocrelizumab on EID (median delay [interquartile range 8.68 [5.09-13.07] weeks). Three months after the last ocrelizumab infusion, 182 (90.1%) patients following SID and 105 (90.5%) EID patients remained relapse free (p = 0.903). Three-month confirmed progression of disability was observed in 18 SID patients (8.9%) and 11 EID patients (9.5%, p = 0.433). MRI progression was documented in 9 SID patients (4.5%) and 8 EID patients (6.9%) at 3-month follow-up (p = 0.232). Multivariate logistic regression showed no association between treatment regimen and no evidence of disease activity status at follow-up (OR: 1.266 [95% CI: 0.695-2.305]; p = 0.441). Clinical stability was accompanied by persistent peripheral CD19+ B-cell depletion in both groups (SID vs EID: 82.6% vs 83.3%, p = 0.463). Disease activity in our cohort was not associated with CD19+ B-cell repopulation.
Conclusion:
Our data support EID of ocrelizumab as potential risk mitigation strategy in times of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Classification Of Evidence:
This study provides Class IV evidence that for patients with RRMS, an EID of at least 4 weeks does not diminish effectiveness of ocrelizumab.
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