Presentation – How to mitigate risk in treating multiple sclerosis

ABSTRACT

No two MS patients are the same, and yet only a limited number of disease-modifying therapies are available for MS neurologists to treat their patients. In this second of a two-part series, Professors Maura Pugliatti and Carlo Pozzilli expand on their earlier presentation (Risk in Multiple Sclerosis Treatment) to guide you in how to manage and mitigate risks associated with treating MS patients. They follow a multifaceted approach based on their own experience and literature reports to provide a set of key messages underlying risk mitigation in MS treatment.

MAURA PUGLIATTI

Maura PUGLIATTI, MD, PhD is Full Professor of Neurology at the University of Ferrara, Director of the
University Hospital Unit of Clinical Neurology, S. Anna Hospital, Ferrara, Italy. She is also Director of the
Residency School of Neurology at the same University. In 2007 she took a PhD and in 2007-10 was
Research Fellow at the Dept. of Public Health and Primary Health Care, University of Bergen, Norway,
actively coordinating a large multi-center case-control study on multiple sclerosis and environmental
risk factors. Since 2011 she is Adjunct Professor at the Dept. of Clinical Medicine, McGill University,
Montreal, Canada within collaborative research in MS epidemiology. She has been Visiting Professor at
the University of Bergen (Erasmus Teaching Staff Mobility program to medical students, 2010-12),
University of Belgrade, Serbia (to PhD student, 2015), and has been a faculty member of the PhD School
in at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj Napoca, Romania, since 2016. In 2008-14 she was
Chair of the EFNS Scientist Panel of Neuroepidemiology and Public Health, and has co-chaired the same
Panel for the European Academy of Neurology in 2015-18. She is a member of ParadigMS Foundation
founders.
Her main research areas are multiple sclerosis, epidemiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, through
collaborative research at national and international level. She is author of 137 papers in peer-reviewed
scientific journals, has a total impact factor > 500 and H-index=37.

CARLO POZZILLI

Professor Pozzilli studied at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. He then moved to the
Hammersmith Hospital in London, UK, to take up a research post in 1980.In 1983, he became a
Board Certified Neurologist at the University of Rome. In 1986 obtained a research grant in
Neuroimaging at the Tohoku University, Sendai Japan.In 1987, he was awarded a PhD in Clinical
Neurosciences by the University of Rome, where he became Full Professor in 2006. In 2002 he
funded and become Director of the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Center of OspedaleS.Andrea, University
of Rome which is his actual position.
Professor Pozzilli’s fields of interest include the clinical aspects and treatment of MS; he has
publishedmore than 350 papers and reviews on these subjects.
Professor Pozzilli is a member of several National and International Societies.
He has participated as a first investigator in at least 250 multicentre clinical trials on patients with
MS. He was alsomember of the Steering Committee and Advisory Board inseveralmulticentre trials.