Friday, October 24, 2008
Annals of medicine: Another advance in the war on MS
Regular readers know that a loved one suffers from MS, and that I occasionally report on interesting advances in the war on that disease. Today we learn that a leukemia drug may improve outcomes in multiple sclerosis patients:
Researchers at the University of Cambridge said Thursday they have found that a drug originally developed to treat leukaemia can halt and even reverse the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis (MS).
In trials, alemtuzumab reduced the number of attacks in sufferers and also helped them recover lost functions, apparently allowing damaged brain tissue to repair so that individuals were less disabled than at the start of the study.
"The ability of an MS drug to promote brain repair is unprecedented," said Dr Alasdair Coles, a lecturer at Cambridge university's department of clinical neurosciences, who coordinated many aspects of the study.
"We are witnessing a drug which, if given early enough, might effectively stop the advancement of the disease and also restore lost function by promoting repair of the damaged brain tissue."
Wow. Let us keep our fingers crossed that others can replicate these findings. And let's do it faster, please.
5 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Oct 25, 12:56:00 AM:
Thanks for that. My girlfriends son has strange symptoms that might be MS, the Doctors are not sure yet. Hopefully the cure is just around the proverbial corner.
By 
TigerHawk, at
Sat Oct 25, 06:38:00 AM:
Sadly, tyree, no cure for MS is just around the corner. Controlling the progression of the disease, though, has made life completely different for hundreds of thousands of MS sufferers. Controlling it better would be even better.
By , at
Sat Oct 25, 10:14:00 AM:
Hopefully it will be possible to slow the progression so much that "normal" life (whatever that is) can go one for decades and decades. I guess sometimes that is the best we can get, and it is a darn sight better than nothing.
By No Sheeples Here!, at
Sat Oct 25, 01:52:00 PM:
I lost my mother to Multiple Sclerosis on December 1, 1996. I know the heartbreak associated with this crippling disease.
While my mother is gone, it is my fervent hope that this finding can and will have a positive outcome for those currently affected by this disease.
May God bless you and your loved one.
By , at
Sat Oct 25, 03:35:00 PM:
Here in NZ we've just completed a world first study on MS, that is, we've found 95% of all people living in the country who have MS, had access to their medical records and produced a near complete profile of the disease here.
There's some interesting facts there:
The crude rate of MS is 72 per 100,000 people. Europeans have the highest rate of over 70/100,000, followed by Asians on 8 and Maori/Pacific Islanders on 2.
The crude prevalence rate between the sexes isn't 2 women to one man as usually quoted but 3 to 1. Whether this is unique to NZ or shows a misperception around the world will be an interesting follow up.
We appear to have proved there is a latitudinal aspect to the disease. In our long, skinny country the rate per 100,000 in northernmost NZ is 50 and in the deep South 135, ie, the further you are from the Equator the greater the prevalence. In the Norther Hemisphere the further North you go, the greater the prevalence.
As much as 40% of people being treated as having MS did not meet the clinical standards set by the survey. We've thus either been poor at initial and follow up diagnosis or there's some other factor at work.
About 70% of people with MS volunteered to fill in a long questionaire about ethnicity, and where they lived at every stage of their lives, where their parents and grandparent came from, exposure or not to the sun (sun, vitamin D and MS appear to be related). These answers will form the basis for a lot of ongoing research regarding environment, genetics and ethnicity.
JC
