Promising Experimental Treatment for Multiple Sclerosis
Promising Experimental Treatment for Multiple Sclerosis – An experimental treatmentment option has shown promising results, according to a report published recently in the journal, JAMA Neurology.
About two dozen patients participated in a 5-year clinical trial called HALT-MS, short for High-Dose Immunosuppressive Therapy and Autologous Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation for Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis conducted by experts in 7 US states, Canada and England. The treatment combines high-dose immune-suppressing therapy and transplantation with the patient’s own blood-producing stem cells to reboot the immune system.
According to Dr. George Georges, a transplant expert at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington, the treatment method seems to halt progression of the disease. So the question for the doctors now is whether doing the transplantation in early stages of the disease might be more beneficial to patients.
Those enrolled in the trial were diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), the most common form of the disease that occurs when the immune system attacks myelin, the fatty sheaths that protect nerve fibers. Standart treatments did not work for any of them.
A Seattle patient, Mike Kearny, who participated in the clinical trial, says that the disease stopped in its tracks, and “The opportunity I was given now feels like a gift,” said Kearny, who was treated in December 2009 and has seen no progress of the disease since.
Category: News
