Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) have become a critical tool for capturing the lived experience of multiple sclerosis (MS), offering a perspective that extends beyond traditional clinical and imaging metrics. As research increasingly prioritises real-world relevance and individualised care, PROs provide valuable insights into symptoms such as fatigue, mood changes, and cognitive decline—factors that often evade objective measurement but have a profound impact on quality of life. Professor Jan Hillert of Karolinska Institute in Sweden and chair of the Swedish MS Registry joins host Brett Drummond of MStranslate to discuss how patient reported data are being integrated into clinical trial design and observational studies. They also explore current limitations to their use and highlight best practices for validation and interpretation.

Biomarkers are one of the most exciting and fast-evolving areas in multiple sclerosis research, offering promise for earlier diagnosis, accurate prognosis, and truly personalised treatment. Yet despite their potential, there is still significant debate that limits their widespread application in clinical and research settings. In this episode, host Brett Drummond is joined by two leading voices in this field, Professor Charlotte Teunissen of Amsterdam UMC in The Netherlands and Associate Professor Michael Khalil of Medical University of Graz in Austria to explore the most promising biomarker candidates and when and how they might be implemented.

Over the past few years, the MS research community has been following developments in a new class of therapies called Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitors (BTKis). At ECTRIMS 2024, the results of two tolebrutinib trials were presented as late-breaking abstracts by Dr. Robert Fox, Neurologist at the Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis at Cleveland Clinic in the US, and Dr. Jiwon Oh, Neurologist at St. Michael's Hospital at the University of Toronto. The full results were recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine. In this episode, host Brett Drummond of MStranslate spoke with Drs. Oh and Fox about the outcomes and what they mean for people with MS.