My wife has MS and I too am concerned that it's taking so long to get definitive results.
We went to visit my wife's neurologist a few months ago, and to summarize my understanding of what he said:
1. They are presently trying to replicate the results achieved in Italy, which was not a blind study i.e they knew who had MS. So I assume a much larger group, coupled with a double blind study, will take considerably longer to do.
2. They have considerably more experience entering arteries than veins. The veins are narrower in diameter and thinner walled and have a tendency to bleed when you enter them. So there are risk elements which they have to work out.
3. They have not worked out the protocol for the MRI yet.
4. The work, done to date, has been done mostly on people with relapsing/ remitting, and not secondary/progressive which my wife has.
When we quizzed my wife's doctor recently about the procedure, he said, "Don't be the first to have the operation, and don't be the last".
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