Many of my colleagues have criticised and reprimanded me for being over-enthusiastic in stating that immunosuppressive MS DMTs are relatively safe for pwMS if they happen to develop COVID-19 whilst on treatment. However, the issue has been asymmetry of knowledge. I have known that patients on DMTs who get COVID-19 are doing well. This is based on knowledge acquired from multiple sources albeit confidentially. I have been trying to encourage my colleagues to put this information into the public domain, but clearly it is not happening soon enough. The delays in getting this information out to you the MS community has been far too slow. Do you agree? The good news is there are now platforms to speed up the dissemination of data; let’s hope it changes behaviour.
At last, the Italian COVID-19 and MS pilot data has been published in a peer-reviewed journal. They report on the first 232 patients with MS who developed COVID-19. I actually commented on this data on the blog on the 10th April and it was only published yesterday. There is nothing new to report. This delay is simply unacceptable as HCPs and pwMS need this type of information to challenge current treatment guidelines with evidence and more importantly, pwMS need this information to make potentially life-threatening decisions about their MS care. The number of patients on each individual DMTs is probably too small to make a definitive judgement, but sufficient to be reassuring.
So if any of my colleagues are reading this post please put your data out in the public domain ASAP and in a form that is accessible to all. There are several platforms for doing this including the weekly iWiMS webinars (see below) and the MSIFs Global Data Sharing Initiative. The latest data presented in the most recent iWiMS webinar is in line with the Italian data and remains very reassuring. It clearly supports the need to update treatment guidelines and develop an exit plan. At the moment I am still on version 4 of my DMT table.
So what are the wider consequences of asymmetric knowledge? To understand this you need to become an economics scholar. Asymmetric knowledge is an economic construct to explain the consequences of what happens where one party has more or better information than the other in a transaction. It creates an imbalance and can sometimes cause market failure, in this case, a potential moral hazard for pwMS and the wider MS community. Other, examples of this problem are adverse selection and monopolies of knowledge. I abhor the latter and it is particularly important that we try and fight it.
In addition to me falling out with several of my colleagues over this issue, many wars have been caused by asymmetric information. If you are interested in reading more about this topic I would recommend Joseph Stiglitz’s work; he won and shared the Nobel prize for economics in 2002 for “analyses of markets with asymmetric information”.
Sormani et al. An Italian programme for COVID-19 infection in multiple sclerosis. Lancet 29th April 2020
Excerpt:
On March 14, 2020, we sent the case report form to more than 200 Italian neurologists from about 90 multiple sclerosis centres across Italy. As of April 7, 2020, we have collected data on 232 patients from 38 centres, 57 of whom tested positive for COVID-19 and 175 of whom had suspected COVID-19 symptoms but did not have a positive test (appendix p 1). Mean follow-up was 12·6 days (SD 7·4). The severity of COVID-19 infection in 232 patients was classified as mild (no pneumonia or mild pneumonia) in 223 (96%), severe (shortness of breath, respiratory rates ≥30 breaths per min, blood oxygen saturation ≤93%, PaO₂:FiO₂ <300 mmHg/%, and an increase in lung infiltrates of >50% within 24–48 h) in four (2%), and critical (respiratory failure, septic shock, and multiple organ dysfunction or failure) in six (3%). Of the six critical patients, one recovered and five died; all had a positive swab (appendix p 2). 21 patients had undergone a 5-day course of methylprednisolone within 3 months before the onset of COVID-19.
CoI: multiple
