Improvements in quality of life of people with relapsing multiple sclerosis treated with cladribine tablets during the 2-year CLARIFY-MS study: a plain language summary

What is this summary about?This article summarises the findings from the CLARIFY-MS study. Cladribinet ablets are an oral medication for the treatment of relapsing multiplesclerosis (MS). The exact number of tablets and number of days depends onthe person's body weight. In the CLARIFY-MS study, researchers investigatedwhether treatment with cladribine tablets improved the health-related qualityof life of people with highly active relapsing MS over a 2-year period. Most ofthe participants (348/482, 72%) were previously treated with other MS disease-modifying treatments (DMTs) before starting treatment with cladribine tabletsin this study.What were the results?Treatment with cladribine tablets significantly improved the health-relatedq uality of life of the participants over the 2-year study period. Similar level ofi mprovement in health-related quality of life was seen in participants who hadpreviously been treated with other MS DMTs and in those whohad not. Safety findings were also similar to previously reporteddata for cladribine tablets. No cases of the most severe gradeof reduction in lymphocyte counts (grade 4; severely compro-mised immune system) were recorded.What do the results mean?Treatment with cladribine tablets improves the health-relatedquality of life of people with highly active relapsing MS regardless of whether they received or did notreceive DMTs for MS before cladribine tablets treatment.