Bexarotene leads to durable improvements in visual evoked potential latency: A follow-up study of the Cambridge Centre for Myelin Repair One trial.

The Cambridge Centre for Myelin Repair One (CCMR-One) trial showed that 6 months of bexarotene reduces visual evoked potential (VEP) latency in people with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). In a single-centre follow-up study of these participants, we re-examined full-field VEP and clinical assessments. Twenty participants (12 bexarotene and 8 placebo) were seen on average 27 months after their trial involvement. In an analysis of all eyes with recordable signal (24 bexarotene and 14 placebo), the adjusted bexarotene-placebo treatment difference in P100 latency was -7.79 (95% confidence interval (CI) = -14.76, -0.82) ms, p  = 0.044. We conclude that there were durable improvements in VEP latency, suggesting long-term benefits from exposure to a remyelinating drug.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: C.E.M. and T.M. have nothing to disclose. J.W.L.B. reports consulting and lecture fees from The Corpus, Biogen Idec and Novartis. A.J.C. and N.G.C. report grants from MS Society of GB, during the conduct of the study. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.