VIDEO: First trimester exposure to dimethyl fumarate is safe

BOSTON — Women with MS who were exposed to dimethyl fumarate in the first trimester had no unexpected adverse pregnancy outcomes, according to Kerstin Hellwig, MD, in this Healio video from the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting.

Hellwig reported on data from nearly 400 pregnancies included in the TecGistry, Biogen’s international registry of women taking Tecfidera (dimethyl fumarate, Biogen) when they became pregnant.

“The really good message is that all adverse pregnancy outcomes were in the range of what was being expected,” Hellwig, senior consultant and MS specialist in the department of neurology at St. Josef Hospital/Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, said. “This includes spontaneous abortions, which occurred in 3.8% of pregnancy, [and] stillbirths at 0.5%. And, at least for women, but also physicians, a very important outcome is the prevalence of major malformations, which we observed in 2.2% of the women participating in this registry.”

She added, “This, overall, gives great assurance that the first trimester exposure to [dimethyl fumarate] or its metabolite, [monomethyl fumarate], is safe, with the clinical consequence that the medication can be taken until a pregnancy is confirmed.”