Study Finds Decreased Life Expectancy of Multiple Sclerosis Patients

According to a study published in the journal Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders, the median lifespan of MS patients was found to be six years less than the non-MS patients. This study is the first large scale study in the U.S. on the mortality of patients with MS.   

MS is a chronic disease of the central nervous system which progresses into a degenerative phase in the majority of affected patients. There are 250,000-350,000 patients with MS in the United States, giving an overall prevalence of roughly one in 1,000.

While David Kaufman, ScD, of the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University, is the lead author, the work itself is the result of a collaboration between the investigators at BU and their colleagues at University of California San Francisco, the University of Alabama, Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Care-Safe LLC, a consulting firm and the sponsor of the research, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals.

The findings of this study are consistent with similarly reported studies elsewhere in the world, according to Kaufman. "While the results apply only to the commercially insured U.S. population, that group represents more than two-thirds of individuals under age 65, and this is the first time an MS survival disadvantage has been shown in this country," Kaufman said. 

While early mortality due to MS is relatively rare, the new data confirm that compared to the general population, MS patients in the US do experience a decrease in life expectancy. Most of the information on survival patterns in MS has come from Europe, where populations, risk factors and medical practice may be different than in the U.S. With the large number of MS patients in the U.S., the lack of data represented a significant knowledge gap. Future studies with longer follow-up periods can provide important information about how the introduction of anti-MS drugs in the 1990s has impacted survival in MS.