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Review
. 2018 Apr 20:11:1756286418770626.
doi: 10.1177/1756286418770626. eCollection 2018.

Immunotherapy of experimental and human stroke with agents approved for multiple sclerosis: a systematic review

Mirjam Dreikorn  1 , Zeljko Milacic  1 , Vladimir Pavlovic  1 , Sven G Meuth  2 , Christoph Kleinschnitz  3 , Peter Kraft  4
Affiliations
Review

Immunotherapy of experimental and human stroke with agents approved for multiple sclerosis: a systematic review

Mirjam Dreikorn et al. Ther Adv Neurol Disord. .

Abstract

Background: 'Thromboinflammation' describes a novel concept in stroke pathophysiology that has opened up the possibility of immunotherapeutic approaches which could become promising strategies for targeted stroke therapies in the future.

Methods: We reviewed current evidence for agents approved for multiple sclerosis in preclinical and clinical stroke studies. A systematic review was performed in accordance with the PRISMA statement, searching MEDLINE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and reference lists of articles published until 16 October 2017.

Results: The review included 52 of 629 identified studies, consisting of 5 clinical and 47 preclinical trials. Most of the studies showed beneficial effects of the evaluated immunotherapeutic drugs in terms of reduction in morphological lesion size and improvement in functional outcome. Nevertheless, the significance of these findings is limited due to the high degree of heterogeneity.

Conclusions: Immunotherapy of stroke might be effective and could become a promising treatment strategy, but larger clinical trials with standardized interventions and outcome measures are needed.

Keywords: immunotherapy; inflammation; intracranial haemorrhage; ischaemic stroke; multiple sclerosis; systematic review; thromboinflammation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest statement: PK has received travel support and honoraria for medical advisory boards from Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Daiichi Sankyo and Bristol-Myers Squibb, outside the submitted work. The other authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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