PLoS ONE (Jan 2013)

Risk acceptance in multiple sclerosis patients on natalizumab treatment.

  • Carmen Tur,
  • Mar Tintoré,
  • Ángela Vidal-Jordana,
  • Denis Bichuetti,
  • Pablo Nieto González,
  • María Jesús Arévalo,
  • Georgina Arrambide,
  • Elisenda Anglada,
  • Ingrid Galán,
  • Joaquín Castilló,
  • Carlos Nos,
  • Jordi Río,
  • María Isabel Martín,
  • Manuel Comabella,
  • Jaume Sastre-Garriga,
  • Xavier Montalban

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082796
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 12
p. e82796

Abstract

Read online

ObjectiveWe aimed to investigate the ability of natalizumab (NTZ)-treated patients to assume treatment-associated risks and the factors involved in such risk acceptance.MethodsFrom a total of 185 patients, 114 patients on NTZ as of July 2011 carried out a comprehensive survey. We obtained disease severity perception scores, personality traits' scores, and risk-acceptance scores (RAS) so that higher RAS indicated higher risk acceptance. We recorded JC virus status (JCV+/-), prior immunosuppression, NTZ treatment duration, and clinical characteristics. NTZ patients were split into subgroups (A-E), depending on their individual PML risk. Some 22 MS patients on first-line drugs (DMD) acted as controls.ResultsNo differences between treatment groups were observed in disease severity perception and personality traits. RAS were higher in NTZ than in DMD patients (pConclusionsRisk acceptance is a multifactorial phenomenon, which might be partly explained by an adaptive process, in light of the higher risk acceptance amongst NTZ-treated patients and, especially, amongst those who are JCV seropositive but still have low PML risk, but which seems also intimately related to personality traits.