#052: Sequencing and Escalation in MS. Navigating Treatment & Progression with Prof. Tomas Kalincik

MS-Perspektive - The Multiple Sclerosis Podcast

Prof. Kalincik gives insights into the statistical results of treatment regimens and why most PwMS benefit from highly effective therapies.

You can find the transcript of the interview to read through on my blog: https://ms-perspektive.com/52-tomas-kalincik

Tomas Kalincik is Professor of Neurology and Applied Statistics at the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia and is concerned with treatment sequences in order to choose the strategy that offers the best long-term prognosis for MS patients. In the interview, he explains how complex and difficult this is and why it nevertheless usually makes sense to opt for a highly effective treatment. He also provides many positive arguments for looking to the future, as the understanding of multiple sclerosis is improving rapidly, enabling ever better therapeutic success.

Table of Contents

• Introduction – Who is Prof. Tomas Kalincik?
• Understanding MS Progression and Treatment Effectiveness
• Treatment Approaches and Strategies
• Sources for Evidence-Based Medicine
• Shared Decision Making and Patient Understanding
• Quickfire Q&A Session
• Farewell

Introduction – Who is Prof. Tomas Kalincik?

Dear Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Thomas Kalincik. I’m a neurologist in Australia, in Melbourne. I’m the Director of the Neuroimmunology Centre at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, which is a dedicated neuroimmunology centre, which looks after people with MS, but also with other neuroimmunological conditions. And also, I am the Head of Clinical Outcomes Research Unit, also known as CORE at the University of Melbourne, whose focus is on analysis of observational data and translating data into evidence.

Finally, what message of hope or encouragement would you like to share with the listeners?

That we are very close. It’s exciting times, as I mentioned several times during this interview, and hopefully I have justified those claims with some mentions of research that has recently been completed, literally in the last two or three years, where we are becoming much more apt in understanding the pathogenesis of MS and how that understanding feeds into the development of new therapies or use of the currently available therapies. So, stay tuned.

How and where can interested people follow your research activities?

We have a website, the Core Clinical Outcomes Research Unit at the University of Melbourne. We have a website where we highlight publications that come from the team. The Neuroimmunology Centre at the Royal Melbourne Hospital also has its own website where we sometimes feature research and we also communicate through channels such as MS Translate, the ECTRIMS platform and MS Australia.

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See you soon and try to make the best out of your life, Nele

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