Economic Assessment of the Relationship between Disease Exacerbations and the Cost of Multiple Sclerosis OBJECTIVE: The primary purpose of

this study was to define the cost of multiple sclerosis (MS) from the per-spective of a managed care organiza-tion (MCO). This study also estimated the cost of a disease exacerbation to predict the cost that may be offset by the use of disease-modifying pharma-ceutical agents. DESIGN: Retrospective (1995-96) claims of a managed care medical and phar-macy database were used as data sources. Multiple linear regression was used to identify the determinants of cost and to estimate the cost of treating an MS disease exacerbation. SETTING: A group model HMO covering approximately 325,000 lives