Characteristics as of September 22, 2025 (database still recruiting)
8
Centers
2115
Patients
17619
Visits (median follow-up 6 years)
>93.6%
of visits with biosample coverage
15125
NfL and GFAP measurements
776
prospective relapses documented
11939
standardised and evaluated brain MRI examinations
400412
number of biofluid samples
About us
The SMSC consortium was established in 2012 and includes nine Swiss MS centres (five university and four cantonal hospitals). Its purposes are to achieve a deeper understanding of multiple sclerosis (MS) and the development of diagnostic and therapeutic tools that can be translated into the clinical care of persons with MS.
It has developed critical expertise in the standardization and integration of high-quality data:
Clinical Data
6-monthly or annual patient examinations are performed by Neurostatus®-certified examiners in >98% of the cases
Imaging data
>10000 brain MRI scans have been acquired and evaluated by the Translational Imaging in Neurology (ThINk); Prof C. Granziera.
Biofluid samples
over 360’ 000 (95% coverage of all visits) samples (cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), serum/plasma/whole blood) have been banked
Integrated research projects
The SMSC aims to develop biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis and individualised therapy choices in people with MS. For example, as a result of the SMSC biological sample collection, neurofilament light chain (NfL), a specific component of the neural cytoskeleton, was established as a sensitive measure of MS disease activity.
Conventional and next generation MRI measures together with fluid and digital biomarkers will help personalize treatment options in MS.
THE FOLLOWING RESEARCH TOPICS ARE CURRENTLY UNDER INVESTIGATION WITHIN THE SMSC (SELECTION):
Targeted (Neurofilament light chain (NfL), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)) and untargeted (proteomic) biomarker approaches to capture MS disease activity and progression from extreme phenotype cohorts to broad and clinical application
Conventional and next generation clinical, imaging investigations of disease progression and treatment response
Digital biomarkers development to provide continuous measures of disease worsening (DREAMS)
Development, validation and translation of CSF to blood biomarkers and their association with MS disease activity
Pragmatic trials (e.g. MultiSCRIPT) and advanced statistical methods of comparative treatment efficacy in real world
Optical coherence tomography and evoked potentials to better characterise the MS disease course
MS treatment during pregnancy and Quality of Life outcomes
Disease severity and immune response against Covid-19
