![Associate Professor Tomas Kalincik](https://thelimbic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Associate-Professor-Tomas-Kalincik-300x300.jpg)
Associate Professor Tomas Kalincik
Research from a global study of almost 16,000 patients with adult-onset relapsing-remitting MS has led to an algorithm for predicting conversion to secondary progressive MS (SPMS).
The observational study, published in Multiple Sclerosis Journal and using data from the MSBase cohort, modeled the changing risk of SPMS at every clinic visit over 100,573 patient-years.
About 10% of patients converted to SPMS during their follow-up with a median time to SPMS of 32.4 years.
The study found older age, longer disease duration, worsening disability, a rapid disease trajectory and a greater number of relapses in the previous year were associated with conversion to SPMS.
A greater proportion of time spent on disease-modifying therapy and an improving disability trajectory ameliorated the risk of conversion.
Brain MRI activity, spinal MRI disease burden and the presence of oligoclonal bands in the CSF were not associated with SPMS.
The study used a case history to demonstrate an overall increase in the relative risk of SPMS conversion from two- to more than six-fold when combining all the individual risk factors over about 17 years.
One of the lead authors Associate Professor Tomas Kalincik, from the Royal Melbourne Hospital, told the limbic the findings were consistent with other research published earlier this year.