The ConcePTION project is committed to building safety evidence for women and their doctors. One of our first contributions is a systematic review and meta-analysis of pregnancy and fetal outcomes in women with Multiple sclerosis (also known as MS). The results add to the existing evidence for women with MS considering pregnancy and for neurologists deciding on treatment during pregnancy and counselling women with unplanned pregnancies. The meta-analysis also highlights the need for more studies to address the lack of evidence. The authors are currently performing further studies within IMI ConcePTION to address some of these knowledge gaps.
Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic neurological disease that affects twice as many women as men. As for most diseases, there is very little evidence on the safety of MS treatments in pregnancy and breastfeeding. This means that women and their doctors’ base their decisions on insufficient information. This could lead women to either stop much needed treatment, continue the treatment without knowing the consequences of continuing or stop unplanned pregnancies due to anticipated harm to the fetus.
The results of this meta-analysis were published in the Journal of Neurology, and presented during the Congress of the Americas and European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS-ACTRIM) earlier this year.
The paper is published in the Journal of Neurology:
Lopez-Leon, S., Geissbühler, Y., Sabidó, M. et al. A systematic review and meta-analyses of pregnancy and fetal outcomes in women with multiple sclerosis: a contribution from the IMI2 ConcePTION project. J Neurol 267, 2721–2731 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-020-09913-1
By Josepine Fernow