Brenda Banwell, MD: Current Perspectives on Pediatric MS Care and Research

“The single most pressing issue for the treatment of children with multiple sclerosis is to have proper clinical trial evidence for efficacy and clinical trial and extension phase data for safety.”

Over the last few decades, the discussions among multiple sclerosis (MS) experts have shifted radically regarding a single subgroup of patients with MS: the pediatric population. Long believed to have a different disease altogether, pediatric MS has now been realized to be the same disease as observed in adults. However, this lack of understanding has led to a rather sizable gap in research for this population.

Now, a number of trials are ongoing in pediatric MS, though the available literature is still limited. On Wednesday, May 27, 2020, Brenda Banwell, MD, chief, Division of Neurology, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, will deliver a presentation on the current perspectives on the state of care and research in pediatric MS for the 2020 Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis (CMSC) Virtual Annual Meeting.

To find out some of her thoughts on the landscape and to glean some of her insight ahead of her presentation, NeurologyLive caught up with Banwell. She stressed the need for clinical trial evidence and research for the pediatric population and cited some of the progress that has been made in addressing MS in children.

For more coverage of CMSC 2020, click here.

REFERENCE

Banwell B. Current Perspectives of Pediatric Care and Research. Presented at: CMSC 2020; May 26-29, 2020.