Nicoline Schiess, Kathryn Brown Holroyd, Faisal Aziz Abdul Aziz, Katherine Huether, Miklos Szolics and Taoufik Alsaadi
The past 6 years have demonstrated a dramatic change in the landscape of immunomodulatory treatment for multiple sclerosis. Prior to 2010, there were no approved FDA oral immunomodulatory medications available. Since then, three new oral medications have been approved in addition to the newly approved alemtuzumab and ocrelizumab. This has dramatically changed the treatment options for MS patients. The older injectable agents – beta-interferons and glatiramer acetate are slowly being replaced. While data exists in the literature regarding the use of new medications in the west, there is little published data about the use of these new medications in the Middle East and, none, to our knowledge, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We conducted a retrospective chart review of four major government hospitals in Abu Dhabi looking at the types of MS in the Emirate, the use of different immunomodulatory treatment and the changes in prescribed medications between 2014 and 2016. A total of 328 people with MS were identified for the study. The proportion of participants receiving injections or infusions significantly (p=0.0013) dropped from 53% (128) in 2014 to 42.7% (102) in 2016.