Combination Therapy Using Cellcept and Rebif in RRMS
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2012-05-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
The purpose of this trial is to examine the benefits of early combination of CellCept® with
Rebif® in long-term management of patients with multiple sclerosis. Quantitation of mRNA for
MxA gene from ex-vivo lymphocytes obtained from patients receiving both drugs or interferon
alone will be used to gauge the usefulness of this combination therapy. In addition we will
examine the safety of combination of mycophenolate mofetil and interferon beta 1a in
treatment of multiple sclerosis.
This is a pilot study to examine if the combination of CellCept® with Rebif® will prove to be
useful in the early treatment of patients with MS. Up-regulation of the MxA gene following
the administration of Rebif® will be used as a surrogate marker of interferon bioactivity.
This in turn could serve as a surrogate marker of interferon efficacy in these patients.
The null hypothesis is that there will not be any difference in the proportion of patients
that produce MxA gene transcripts in the Rebif® group as compared to the group that received
Rebif® with CellCept® at the end of this study (1 year).
The alternate hypothesis is that the combination of CellCept® with Rebif® will prove to be
useful in prolonging the efficacy of interferon. In other words, the combination will result
in a significant proportion of patients in the treatment group continuing to produce MxA as
compared to the proportion of patients producing MxA in the Rebif® arm.