Multiple sclerosis outcomes after cancer diagnosis in people with recorded chemotherapy exposure: A real-world MSBase study.

Authors

Cassie Nesbitt, Paul Sanfilippo, Chao Zhu, Serkan Ozakbas, Alexandre Prat, Marc Girard, Pierre Duquette, Tomas Kalincik, Izanne Roos, Katherine Buzzard, Olga Skibina, Matteo Foschi, Andrea Surcinelli, Jeannette Lechner-Scott, Francesco Patti, Allan G Kermode, Marzena Fabis-Pedrini, William M Carroll, Suzanne Hodgkinson, Francois Grand'Maison, Eva Kubala Havrdova, Pavel Hradilek, Mario Habek, Davide Maimone, Raed Alroughani, Marta Vachova, Vincent van Pesch, Richard Macdonell, Daniele Spitaleri, Samia J Khoury, Oliver Gerlach, Koen de Gans, Pamela McCombe, Anneke Van Der Walt, Helmut Butzkueven, Vilija Jokubaitis

Published in

Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England). Pages 13524585261460658. Aug 02, 2026. Epub Aug 02, 2026.

Abstract

As more people with multiple sclerosis (MS) survive cancer, questions about MS management after cancer are increasingly relevant. This study aimed to describe post-cancer treatment patterns and MS outcomes in people with recorded chemotherapy exposure.
Using MSBase, we identified people with MS with cancer and chemotherapy exposure. Time to first relapse and 6-month confirmed disability progression (CDP) were analysed using Cox models with disease-modifying therapy (DMT) as a time-varying covariate. Outcomes were contextualised using 1:2 propensity-matched MS controls without cancer or chemotherapy.
In total, 363 individuals were followed for 2.8 years (median) after cancer. Older age at cancer was associated with lower relapse hazard (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.96 per year, p = 0.008), while DMT category was not. The DMT category was not associated with CDP. In matched analysis (256 vs. 505), relapse hazard was lower during the first year after cancer (HR = 0.30, p = 0.015) with no difference thereafter; CDP risk was similar (HR = 1.13, p = 0.60).
Post-cancer DMT category was not associated with relapse or CDP. Lower first-year relapse hazard, together with lower relapse hazard at older age, may provide cautious reassurance regarding early post-cancer inflammatory activity in similar clinical contexts, although the drivers of the first-year signal remain uncertain.

PMID:
42543909
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 03 Aug 2026.

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