Eric Thouvenot

• MD PhD
• Professor (Full) at Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire de Nîmes

Background Real‐world data suggest that the early use of highly active therapies (HAT) may reduce the risk of transition to secondary progressive MS (SPMS). However, current knowledge about predictive factors of outcomes needs to be improved. The primary objective of this study was to determine factors associated with the occurrence of SPMS in pati...

Background Retrospective studies did not show strong evidence of higher risk of adverse neonatal or pregnancy outcomes in women with multiple sclerosis (MS) compared to general population, but there are contradictory data on prematurity, cesarean section, and small birthweight for gestational age (SGA). Methods We compared pregnancy and birth outc...

Background Recent studies support the need for early and intensive disease-modifying treatment (DMT) for patients with multiple sclerosis (PWMS). Abrupt DMT withdrawal may risk disease reactivation. Recent studies showed that MS disease activity was not rare after DMT withdrawal for PWMS aged >45/55 y. Immune reconstitution therapy (IRT) with cladr...

Importance Vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for multiple sclerosis (MS) and is associated with the risk of disease activity, but data on the benefits of supplementation are conflicting. Objective To evaluate the efficacy of high-dose cholecalciferol as monotherapy in reducing disease activity in patients with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS...

Introduction: Cette étude vise à évaluer le volume des plexus choroïdes (PC) dans une large cohorte de patients atteints du syndrome radiologique isolé (RIS) par rapport à des témoins sains (HC) et à explorer sa relation avec d'autres volumes cérébraux, avec l'activité de la maladie par le biais de l'imagerie (dissémination dans le temps) ou par l'...

Alzheimer’s disease and cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) are often associated. Amyloid accumulation within leptomeningeal and small/median-sized cerebral blood vessels in CAA results in vessel fragility, leading to spontaneous leptomeningeal bleeding, lobar intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and cerebral microbleeds. CAA is also associated with non-tr...

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) has demonstrated a favorable benefit–risk profile in patients with relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). Some patients may develop lymphopenia on DMF; therefore, LymphoTEC evaluated absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) reconstitution after DMF discontinuation. LymphoTEC was a retrospective, multicenter study of patients...

Background and objectives: Older studies reported an increased risk of relapse after in vitro fertilization (IVF) in women with multiple sclerosis (MS), which has not been confirmed by more recent works. All these studies had several limitations, such as small sample sizes, absence of a control population, or lack of neurologic validation of the r...

Background The clinical course of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) antibody-associated disease (MOGAD) is variable. However, robust markers of poor outcome and/or relapse risk are still missing. Objective To evaluate the frequency of cerebrospinal fluid-restricted oligoclonal bands (CSF-OCB) in a national cohort of adult MOGAD patients an...

Radiological calcified cerebral embolism (CCE) characteristics have been reported in small case series. Our aim was to describe clinical and radiological CCE characteristics in a large number of CCE and to compare characteristics between different patient groups. Characteristics of 79 stroke patients with CCE were analyzed retrospectively. Clinical...

Introduction Myeloid cells trafficking from the periphery to the central nervous system are key players in multiple sclerosis (MS) through antigen presentation, cytokine secretion and repair processes. Methods Combination of mass cytometry on blood cells from 60 MS patients at diagnosis and 29 healthy controls, along with single cell RNA sequencin...

Background We hypothesized that differences in access to disease-modifying treatments (DMTs) could explain the association between socioeconomic status and disability progression in multiple sclerosis (MS). Objective This study aimed to analyze the association between education level and DMT use in France. Methods All patients from OFSEP network...

Background Studies have reported an association between socioeconomic status and disability progression in multiple sclerosis (MS), but findings using the pre-MS individual socioeconomic status are missing. Objective The objective was to investigate the association between education level and disability progression. Methods All Observatoire Franç...

Background and objectives: Although rituximab failed to demonstrate a significant effect on disability progression in primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS), ocrelizumab succeeded. Our main objective was to analyze confirmed disability progression (CDP) in a cohort of patients with PPMS treated with anti-CD20 therapies compared with a weigh...

Radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS) is the earliest stage in the disease continuum of multiple sclerosis (MS). RIS is discovered incidentally in individuals who are asymptomatic but have typical lesions in the brain and/or spinal cord suggestive of demyelination. The 2009 and revised 2023 RIS criteria were developed for diagnosis. Presymptomatic...

Background Choroid plexus (ChP) enlargement is an emerging radiological biomarker in multiple sclerosis (MS). Objectives This study aims to assess ChP volume in a large cohort of patients with radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS) versus healthy controls (HC) and explore its relationship with other brain volumes, disease activity, and biological...

Background and objectives: Because myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disease (MOGAD) is a recently identified autoimmune disorder, the natural history of MOGAD is still not well described. The objective of this study was to describe the long-term outcomes of adult patients with MOGAD. In addition, we aimed to identify factors...

Importance Understanding the association between clinically defined relapses and radiological activity in multiple sclerosis (MS) is essential for patient treatment and therapeutic development. Objective To investigate clinical events identified as relapses but not associated with new T2 lesions or gadolinium-enhanced T1 lesions on brain and spina...

BACKGROUND Periventricular white matter hyperintensities (PVWMHs) in cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) have been reported posterior predominant using semiautomated segmentation method and logarithmic transformation. We aimed to compare PVWMH extent and posterior/anterior distribution between patients with CAA and patients with hypertensive arteriop...

Background and objectives: Cerebral amyloid angiopathy-related inflammation (CAA-RI) and biopsy-positive primary angiitis of the CNS (BP-PACNS) have overlapping clinicoradiologic presentations. It is unknown whether clinical and radiologic features can differentiate CAA-RI from BP-PACNS and whether both diseases have different relapse rates. The o...

Background and objectives: The aim of this study was to identify novel biomarkers for multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis and prognosis, addressing the critical need for specific and prognostically valuable markers in the field. Methods: We conducted an extensive proteomic investigation, combining analysis of (1) CSF proteome from symptomatic cont...

Background Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and spinal MRIs are often obtained in children with the radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS) for diagnosis and prognosis. Factors affecting the frequency and timing of these tests are unknown. Objective To determine whether age or sex were associated with (1) having CSF or spinal MRI obtained or (2) the timin...

Importance A recent randomized clinical trial concluded that discontinuing medium-efficacy therapy might be a reasonable option for older patients with nonactive multiple sclerosis (MS), but there is a lack of data on discontinuing high-efficacy therapy (HET). In younger patients, the discontinuation of natalizumab and fingolimod is associated with...

Background Epidemiological data reveal that 45% of persons with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) in France are more than 50 years. This population more than 50 is more susceptible to cancer, and this risk may be increased by frequent use of immunosuppressive drugs. Consequently, concerns have arisen about the potential increased risk of cancer in PwMS and...

Importance Moderately effective therapies (METs) have been the main treatment in pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (POMS) for years. Despite the expanding use of highly effective therapies (HETs), treatment strategies for POMS still lack consensus. Objective To assess the real-world association of HET as an index treatment compared with MET with...

Background Epidemiologic studies on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in patients with multiple sclerosis (pwMS) have focused on the first waves of the pandemic until early 2021. Objectives We aimed to extend these data from the onset of the pandemic to the global coverage by vaccination in summer 2022. Methods This retrospective, multicenter o...

Background and objective Determining whether multiple sclerosis (MS) causes death is challenging. Our objective was to contrast two frameworks to estimate probabilities of death attributed to MS (P MS ) and to other causes (P Other ): the cause-specific framework (CSF) which requires the causes of death and the excess mortality framework (EMF) whic...

Vitamin D deficiency is a recognized risk factor for multiple sclerosis (MS) and has been associated with disease activity and progression. Vitamin D treatment has emerged as potentially protective, despite conflicting results from randomized controlled trials. Here, we used single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) combined with barcoded antibodies t...

Importance: Radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS) represents the earliest detectable preclinical phase of multiple sclerosis (MS) punctuated by incidental magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) white matter anomalies within the central nervous system. Objective: To determine the time to onset of symptoms consistent with MS. Design, setting, and part...

Objective: Cerebral vasculitis (CV) is a severe complication of pneumococcal meningitis (PM); whether dexamethasone use can reduce its occurrence remains to be determined. Methods: This is a retrospective observational bicentric study analyzing all adults with proven PM hospitalized between January 2002 and December 2020 in two tertiary hospital...

Objectives: Functional neurological disorders have witnessed intense research activity in the fields of structural and functional neuroimaging for more than twenty years. Thus, we propose a synthesis of recent research findings and etiological hypotheses that have been proposed so far. This work should help clinicians to better understand the natu...

Background Vaccination in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) treated with immunosuppressive drugs is highly recommended. Regarding COVID-19 vaccination, no specific concern has been raised. Objectives We aimed to evaluate if COVID-19 vaccination or infection increased the risk of disease activity, either radiological or clinical, with conversio...

Importance: In patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), factors associated with severe COVID-19 include anti-CD20 therapies and neurologic disability, but it is still unclear whether these 2 variables are independently associated with severe COVID-19 or whether the association depends on MS clinical course. Objective: To assess the association bet...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease often characterized by remission and relapse periods occurring at irregular intervals after an initial attack (clinically isolated syndrome) and followed by a gradual progression of disability. Clinical symptoms, magnetic resonance imaging and abnormalities in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF...

The immune system plays a significant role in multiple sclerosis. While MS was historically thought to be T cell-mediated, multiple pieces of evidence now support the view that B cells are essential players in multiple sclerosis pathogenic processes. High-efficacy disease-modifying therapies that target the immune system have emerged over the past...

Background: Cerebellar superficial siderosis (SS) has been recently reported to be present in about 10% of both hereditary and sporadic cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) on 3T MRI using primarily susceptibility-weighted imaging. Objectives: Our aim was to assess cerebellar SS in sporadic CAA patients using 1.5T T2*-weighted MRI and to evaluate p...

The radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS) was defined in 2009 as the presence of asymptomatic, incidentally identified demyelinating-appearing white matter lesions in the central nervous system within individuals lacking symptoms typical of multiple sclerosis. The RIS criteria have been validated and predict the transition to symptomatic MS reliab...

Background and objectives: Ocrelizumab (OCR), a humanized anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody, is highly efficient in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RR-MS). We assessed early cellular immune profiles and their association with disease activity at treatment start and under therapy, which may provide new clues on the mechanisms of a...

Background and objectives In stroke patients treated with intravenous thrombolysis (IVT), presence and high number of strictly lobar cerebral microbleeds (compatible with cerebral amyloid angiopathy, CAA) seems to be associated with increased risk of hemorrhagic transformation, symptomatic hemorrhagic transformation, remote hemorrhage, and poor fun...

Background and aims Multiple sclerosis (MS) is associated with osteoporosis, possibly due to neurological disability and decreased calcium intake. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a personalized nutritional advice program by a dietitian compared to the delivery of a standard advice form to optimize dietary calcium intake...

Background and Objectives Kappa free light chains (KFLC) seem to efficiently diagnose MS. However, extensive cohort studies are lacking to establish consensus cut-offs, notably to rule out non-MS autoimmune CNS disorders. Our objectives were to (1) determine diagnostic performances of CSF KFLC, KFLC index, and KFLC intrathecal fraction (IF) thresho...

Background The effects of socio-economic status on mortality in patients with multiple sclerosis is not well known. The objective was to examine mortality due to multiple sclerosis according to socio-economic status. Methods A retrospective observational cohort design was used with recruitment from 18 French multiple sclerosis expert centers parti...

Background and objectives The question of the long-term safety of pregnancy is a major concern in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, but its study is biased by reverse causation (women with higher disability are less likely to experience pregnancy). Using a causal inference approach, we aimed to estimate the unbiased long-term effects of pregnancy o...

Background In relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), early identification of suboptimal responders can prevent disability progression. Objective We aimed to develop and validate a dynamic score to guide the early decision to switch from first- to second-line therapy. Methods Using time-dependent propensity scores (PS) from a French cohort...

Background and objectives: To evaluate the predictive value of serum neurofilament light chain (sNfL) and CSF NfL (cNfL) in patients with radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS) for evidence of disease activity (EDA) and clinical conversion (CC). Methods: sNfL and cNfL were measured at RIS diagnosis by single-molecule array (Simoa). The risk of E...

Objectives: We aimed to investigate the one-month humoral response to two or three doses as primary vaccination in specific populations compared to healthy adults. Methods: ANRS0001S-COV-POPART (NCT04824651) is a French nationwide multicenter prospective observational cohort study assessing the immune response to Covid-19 vaccines routinely admi...

Objectives: Primary acute convexity subarachnoid hemorrhage (cSAH) in older patients can be observed in cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) or idiopathic (with cSAH as potential initial manifestation of suspected CAA). We aimed to analyze baseline, clinical and MRI (including quantitative cSAH surface analysis and topographical probabilistic cSAH ma...

Objectives To evaluate the rate of return of disease activity after cessation of multiple sclerosis (MS) disease-modifying therapy. Methods This was a retrospective cohort study from two large observational MS registries: MSBase and OFSEP. Patients with relapsing-remitting MS who had ceased a disease-modifying therapy and were followed up for the...

Background Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP), a rare disorder affecting young adults, causes gradual weakness of the limbs, areflexia and impaired sensory function. New CIDP phenotypes without pathogenic antibodies but with modified cell profiles have been described. Treatments include corticotherapy, intravenous immu...

Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with the risk of multiple sclerosis, disease activity and progression. Results from in vitro experiments, animal models and analysis of human samples from randomized controlled trials provide comprehensive data illustrating the pleiotropic actions of Vitamin D on the immune system. They globally result in im...

Background Natalizumab and fingolimod are used as high-efficacy treatments in relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis. Several observational studies comparing these two drugs have shown variable results, using different methods to control treatment indication bias and manage censoring. The objective of this empirical study was to elucidate the impac...

Background: Therapeutic management of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) has evolved towards early treatment. The objective was to assess the impact of early treatment initiation on disability progression among RRMS first-line treated patients. Methods: This study included all incident RRMS cases starting interferon or glatiramer acet...

Radiologically Isolated Syndrome (RIS) is characterized by MRI-typical brain lesions fulfilling the 2009 Okuda criteria, detected in patients without clinical conditions suggestive of MS. Half of all RIS patients convert to MS within 10 years. The individual course of the disease, however, is highly variable with 12% of RIS converting directly to p...

Features of resting brain metabolism in motor functional neurological disorder are poorly characterized. This study aimed to investigate the alterations of resting brain metabolism in a cohort of patients experiencing a first episode of motor functional neurological disorder with recent symptom onset, and their association with persistent disabilit...

MRI signal changes in the brainstem are observed in a multitude of disorders including vascular diseases, neoplastic lesions, degenerative diseases, inflammatory disorders, metabolic diseases, infections, and trauma. In some diseases, brainstem involvement is typical and sometimes isolated, while in other diseases, brainstem lesions are only observ...

Depuis la première vague début 2020, l’épidémie de COVID-19 a bouleversé le fonctionnement de hôpitaux et la prise en charge de nombreux patients atteints de maladies chroniques, dont la sclérose en plaques (SEP). De grandes questions ont été soulevées par l’épidémie concernant les risques des traitements immunosuppresseurs. Les données observation...

We present a native-Moroccan 39 year-old man with left hemiparesis, fever, weight loss, aphthous stomatitis, elbow arthritis and biological inflammatory syndrome for 3 weeks. He had no previous personal or familial antecedent. Cerebral MRI showed an infiltrative lesion from external capsule to diencephalon, with heterogeneous restriction and gadoli...

Context: Posterior spinal cord lesions are found in patients with ganglionopathy. These are normally found in later stages of the neuronopathy as a consequence of dorsal root ganglia degeneration. Cerebellar Ataxia, Neuropathy, Vestibular Areflexia Syndrome (CANVAS) is an emerging neurological disorder. Myelitis lesions have been described in conf...

In France, two therapeutic strategies can be offered after fingolimod (FNG) withdrawal to highly active relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) patients: natalizumab (NTZ) or anti-CD20. We compared the effectiveness of these two strategies as a switch for FNG within the OFSEP database. The primary endpoint was the time to first relapse. Other...

Multiple paraneoplastic syndromes are a rare clinical manifestation. We describe the case of an 82-year-old woman who presented with neurological (rapidly progressive cerebellar syndrome and combined sensory-motor neuronopathy) and rheumatological (palmar fasciitis and polyarthritis syndrome) paraneoplastic syndromes associated with two onconeural...

Background and Purpose Intraplaque hemorrhage (IPH) is a key feature of vulnerable carotid atherosclerotic plaque (CAP), associated with low densities (<25 Hounsfield unit, HU) on CTA. This study aimed to analyze CAP on routine CTA performed in patients with symptomatic and asymptomatic carotid stenosis undergoing carotid endarterectomy (CEA) by as...

Dissociative disorders (DD) and conversion disorders (CD) are frequent in general and psychiatric populations. Some evidence suggest that the hypothalamic-pituitary axis (HPA) and autonomic nervous system (ANS) are dysregulated in both disorders. We carried out a systematic review of the literature to summarize the existing knowledge on the stress...

Introduction: Younger age, oligoclonal bands, infratentorial, and presence of spinal cord lesions are factors associated with an increased 10-year risk of clinical conversion from radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS). Whether disease-modifying therapy is beneficial in RIS remains currently unknown. Objectives: To evaluate the 2-year risk of a cli...

Importance: Younger age, oligoclonal bands, and infratentorial and spinal cord lesions are factors associated with an increased 10-year risk of clinical conversion from radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS) to multiple sclerosis (MS). Whether disease-modifying therapy is beneficial for individuals with RIS is currently unknown. Objectives: To e...

IntroductionNatalizumab has proved to be more effective than fingolimod in reducing disease activity in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). Whether this association is universal for all patient groups remains to be determined.Objective The aim of this study was to compare the relative effectiveness of natalizumab and fingolimod in RRMS s...

We evaluated the effect of DMTs on Covid‐19 severity in patients with MS, with a pooled‐analysis of two large cohorts from Italy and France. The association of baseline characteristics and DMTs with Covid‐19 severity was assessed by multivariate ordinal‐logistic models and pooled by a fixed‐effect meta‐analysis. 1066 patients with MS from Italy and...

Diagnosis of inherited ataxia and related diseases represents a real challenge given the tremendous heterogeneity and clinical overlap of the various causes. We evaluated the efficacy of molecular diagnosis of these diseases by sequencing a large cohort of undiagnosed families. We analyzed 366 unrelated consecutive patients with undiagnosed ataxia...

Background: Acute infarction patterns have been described in cardioembolic stroke, mainly with atrial fibrillation (AF) or patent foramen ovale. We aimed to analyse acute infarction magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) characteristics in stroke patients with intracardiac thrombus (ICT) compared with stroke patients with AF. Methods: We performed a r...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an immune-driven demyelinating disease of the central nervous system. Immune cell features are particularly promising as predictive biomarkers due to their central role in the pathogenesis but also as drug targets, even if nowadays, they have no impact in clinical practice. Recently, high-resolution approaches, such as ma...

Objective To determine whether adult cases of Chronic Lymphocytic Inflammation with Pontine Perivascular Enhancement Responsive to Steroids (CLIPPERS) may be related to familial hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) causes, we have screened patients with adult-onset CLIPPERS for mutations in primary HLH-associated genes. Methods In our cohort o...

Background Natalizumab and fingolimod were the first preparations recommended for disease breakthrough in priorly treated relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Of three published head-to-head studies two showed that natalizumab is the more effective to prevent relapses and EDSS worsening. Methods By re-analyzing original published results from M...

We compared SimoaTM and EllaTM immunoassays to assess serum neurofilament‐light chain levels in 203 multiple sclerosis patients from the OFSEP HD study. There was a strong correlation (ρ = 0.86, p < 0.0001) between both platforms. The EllaTM instrument overestimated values by 17%, but as the data were linear (p = 0.57), it was possible to apply a c...

Introduction 3,4-Dihydroxy-6-[¹⁸F]-fluoro-l-phenylalanine (FDOPA) positron emission tomography (PET) is sensitive for identifying primary brain tumors. However, increased FDOPA uptake has been reported in pseudotumoral brain lesions. Our aim was to analyse FDOPA-PET in patients with pseudotumoral brain lesions and to compare them with patients with...

Introduction Le syndrome d’ataxie cérébelleuse avec neuropathie et aréflexie vestibulaire (CANVAS) est une pathologie héréditaire autosomique récessive dont la mutation a été publiée en 2019. Observation Un homme de 55 ans d’origine portugaise a consulté pour troubles de l’équilibre évoluant depuis trois ans, associant des paresthésies des quatre...

Introduction La diplégie faciale révélant un syndrome de Guillain–Barré (SGB) est une manifestation neurologique qui émerge comme associée à l’infection virale émergente SARS-CoV-2. Observation Nous rapportons deux cas consécutifs de diplégie faciale en lien avec un SGB. Les patients remplissaient les critères cliniques (diplégie faciale, parésie,...