Possible New Treatment for MS Sufferers

[puckhog]

There was a sement on W5 today about an Italian physician, Dr. Paolo Zamboni, who has been doing some incredible new research into MS, and it's causes and possible treatments. It basically goes against everything that is currently thought about the disease. Instead of saying MS is an autoimmune disorder, Dr. Zamboni links the condition to a narrowing of veins in the neck, which constricts bloodflow and results in an excess build-up of iron in the brain. By inflating a surgical balloon in the patient's neck veins and restoring normal bloodflow, he claims to have seen drastic improvement in MS patients, including his own wife.

For anyone interested, you can read more here: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...1121?s_name=W5.

As someone who has watched two family members (one of whom has passed away) struggle for years with MS, I was highly interested in this, and wanted to share it with everyone here.

[flamesfever]

Great minds think alike.

My wife suffers from MS, along with a number of our friends. I would be keenly interested in knowing how these findings are being received by the medical experts here in Calgary... and more importantly if they are acting on them.

[Displaced Flames fan]

I read flamesfever's post first and my initial thought was....well, MS is an autoimmune disorder. Bloodflow? That makes no sense!

This kind of a breakthrough takes a real outside the box thought process. Great stuff and extremely rare.

[onetwo_threefour]

Thanks for the info.
My mother-in-law has had MS for over 20 years, maybe this will come to something helpful in the very near future.

[HPLovecraft]

I think it's ridiculous that this guy's findings were "dismissed" by the majority of other neurologists just because they were off the beaten path. There's an issue in the establishment when even someone who, I assume, is relatively respected and educated is dismissed for finding a new way of thinking.

I hope this proves to be a major break-through and inspires others in the medical field to look at other, accepted, medical issues in a different light, as well.

[T@T]

Had a buddy die because of MS many years ago, brutal disease that got him in his 20's and killed him 12-13 years later...(he killed himself with a shotgun)

To see him transform from a young athlete to someone with the use a walker was brutal and cruel,I'll never forget his smile but I'll never forget that he said every muscle in his body ached 20 hours a day.

Imagine not being able to take a break and relax..I miss him.

Lets hope they find something for this cruel disease.

[GreenLantern]

This is great news.

I lost my Mom to MS when I was just a wee lad and I have been fund raising for research since I knew what fund raising was.

I hope he can save some lives and shape some others.

[HPLovecraft]

What's with the MS societies in the USA discouraging MS sufferers from even going to get tested? Not just treated, but even TESTED? Seems a lot of MS sufferers are upset with their position on this whole thing...

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

What's with the MS societies in the USA discouraging MS sufferers from even going to get tested? Not just treated, but even TESTED? Seems a lot of MS sufferers are upset with their position on this whole thing...

well if this treatment works as well as proposed, then there's no more money to collect by those MS societies in donations. money is in the treatment or "research", never the cure

[puckhog]

Something I haven't seen discussed yet, which I (for somewhat selfish reasons) find very exciting is the possibility of using this to screen patients before they contract the disease, similar to mammograms for breast cancer. As someone who is in the high-risk category for MS, I could conceivably go on my 30th birthday and have an ultrasound performed on my veins. If narrowing is observed at that time, they could perform this treatment before I show any type of symptom. That, of course, is assuming that these new findings gain traction and acceptance.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

I found out last week that a friend of mine who I've literally known my entire life (was born a day before me, and his mother was in the room next to mine at the hospital) was just diagnosed with MS.

I'm very glad to hear there's some major progress in its research

[Charcot]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

Great minds think alike.

My wife suffers from MS, along with a number of our friends. I would be keenly interested in knowing how these findings are being received by the medical experts here in Calgary... and more importantly if they are acting on them.

I guess the best answer would be very cautious optimism and significant skepticism. It is felt that these results need to be replicated by another group.

We were involved in a recent trial looking at the role of Lithium in ALS(Lou Gehrig's disease). A small Italian trail had shown no deaths in a group of ALS patients treated with lithium + riluzole(the standard treatment) compared to a third of patients dying on riluzole alone over the course of one year. As a result many patients started taking lithium. The study we performed mimicked the treatment of the Italian group but using a much more rigorous design. This was a multicentre study using the Canadian ALS Research Network(CALS) and the North East ALS Research Network (NEALS). There was no no benefit of lithium over placebo. People who took the lithium were only exposed to the side effects and not any potential benefit other than having hope. In the past we have seen similar patterns with other treatments.

One particularly compelling example is minocycline. Data in animals suggested benefit in ALS. Lots of patients decided to take minocyline on their own outside of a trial. Understandable in the context of a disease which kills you and has no treatment which can halt it. Unfortunately in the trial patients who took minocycline had a higher mortality rate than those who did not.

I look forward to the day when we have treatments for MS and ALS that can stop and potentially reverse the diseases. I hope this is a step forward for MS. I hope that repeated testing can show a benefit. However personally I remain skeptical. I hope I am wrong.

Charcot

[Thor]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

I think it's ridiculous that this guy's findings were "dismissed" by the majority of other neurologists just because they were off the beaten path. There's an issue in the establishment when even someone who, I assume, is relatively respected and educated is dismissed for finding a new way of thinking.

Well thats the way science approaches new claims, with skepticism. It has to, because thats the way it works, claim something, now prove it.

The establishment, I assume you mean science; does an outstanding job with checks/balances to ensure real breakthroughs are separated from flawed research or something that is outright wrong.

I just wanted to add what he meant by majority of neurologists was likely amongst his countrymen and we don't know how many turned him away. So lets not assume more than that.

Anyways this is possibly one of the biggest breakthroughs we've seen in some time, lets hope this is finally something for MS sufferers to get excited about.