MS Frontiers 2022 | Developing biomarkers for individual prognostication in MS

Klaus Schmierer, MB BS, PhD, FRCP, Queen Mary University of London & The Royal London Hospital of Barts Health NHS Trust, London, UK, talks on the potential of predictive and prognostic multiple sclerosis (MS) biomarkers for use at an individual level. At the cohort level, several widely used biomarkers are able to provide valuable information on disease natural history, as well as intervention efficacy. These include MRI measures of lesion load and brain volume. More recently, serum neurofilament light chain (sNfL) has also been introduced to monitor disease activity and response to drugs, and to prognosticate disease course in people with MS on the group level. The big challenge in this space is the use of biomarkers for individual prognostication. A newly established database of reference values for sNfL may enable progress here, as it has been shown that the use of Z score values from this reference database can identify patients at risk of detrimental disease course and suboptimal therapy response, beyond clinical and MRI measures. The growing implantation of artificial intelligence is also driving this field forwards. This interview took place during the MS Frontiers 2022 congress in Swansea, UK.