Temporal trends of epilepsy in multiple sclerosis

Area of Science:

• Neurology
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Epilepsy is a known complication of multiple sclerosis (MS).
• The advent of disease-modifying treatments (DMT) for MS has raised questions about their impact on associated conditions like epilepsy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of DMT introduction on the incidence of epilepsy in patients with MS.
• To analyze trends in epilepsy incidence among MS patients over time.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective study of 14,557 patients from the Swedish MS register (1991-2018).
• Epilepsy diagnoses identified via national patient register linkage.
• Kaplan-Meier analysis for 5- and 10-year epilepsy incidence; Cox regression for adjustments.

Main Results:

• Epilepsy prevalence in the MS cohort rose from 0.34% (1991) to 2.54% (2018).
• No significant trends were observed in 5-year (p=0.147) or 10-year (p=0.418) epilepsy incidence rates.
• Incidence trends remained non-significant after adjusting for sex, MS onset type, and age at onset.

Conclusions:

• The introduction of novel DMT for MS has not demonstrably reduced the incidence of epilepsy in MS patients.
• Further research may be needed to understand the complex relationship between MS, its treatments, and epilepsy development.