Betaferon Causes Less Injection Site Pain and Injection Site Reactions Than Rebif in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis: Presented at ECTRIMS: "MADRID, SPAIN -- October 4, 2006 -- Interferon beta-1b (Betaferon or Betaseron) 250 mcg treatment causes less injection site pain and fewer injection site reactions than interferon beta-1a (Rebif) 44 mcg, report researchers from the (Betaferon versus Rebif InvestigatinG Higher Tolerability (BRIGHT study). for multiple sclerosis

'This was the first large-scale comparison of these 2 agents for these 2 endpoints,' said lead investigator Karl Baum, MD, university lecturer, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany. 'We saw highly significant differences for pain and skin reactions between these 2 agents.'

The subjects self-injected the agents and self-assessed injection site pain for 15 consecutive injections of the same agent. After each injection, patients completed entries in a 0-100 mm visual analogue scale (VAS) diary immediately after, at 30 minutes and at 60 minutes.

Study nurses checked for reported injection site reactions, and they were then confirmed by physicians.

The researchers questioned each subject about treatment satisfaction relative to pain at the injection site.

Investigators analysed evaluable data on 303 patients on Betaferon and 142 on Rebif. Baseline characteristics of both groups of subjects were comparable.

Significantly more patients were free from pain in the Betaferon arm compared with the Rebif arm at 30 minutes (42.6% vs 19.7%; P < .0001).

The mean proportion of pain-free injections at 30 minutes was greater with Betaferon than with Rebif (79.0% vs 53.3%; P < .0001).....

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