"Ottawa doctors behind breakthrough MS report"

[applegrove]

Ottawa doctors behind breakthrough MS report

By DEREK SPALDING AND Charlie Fidelman, Ottawa Citizen

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/team+Ottawa+doctors+preparing+publish+full+report/8180666/story.html

"SNIP..................................................

Eliminating MS completely and watching patients improve surprised both Freedman and Dr. Harold Atkins, a bone-marrow transplant expert, who started the study. The two originally set out to monitor the development of the disease and find a way to treat it. Their theory was this: Wipe out the entire immune system, reboot it with a transplant of the patient’s own bone marrow and wait for MS to regenerate.

“We thought we might be able to intercept one of the signals that initiates the disease and that would then give us a clue on how to treat it,” Freedman said. He jokes that they “had, in effect, failed because the disease never came back. No one expected to see zero disease activity after the transplant.”

Patients from Vancouver to Newfoundland, who had given up hope, became part of the original 24, including third-year medical student Alex Normandin from Montreal.

...................................

The procedure has its risks. One patient died in an earlier phase of the trial. It was in 2001 or 2002, Freedman recalled, saying the death was due to the pill form of the drug Busulphan. Used early on in the experiment, the drug attacks the liver twice, both when it enters the body and again when it leaves. But within a year, the team had found that a new intravenous version of the drug improved patient safety tremendously.


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[Squinch]

1. I am actually tearing up over this. It's a miracle. Thanks for posting.

[applegrove]

2. I read it in the newspapers and was like "What? How come this is not on the tv". Apparently

5% of people die from that type of operation. I guess that's why. Still. Good news for those who are so disabled that they are willing to try it.

[kristopher]

3. K&R

[AllyCat]

4. Science to the rescue again! Good news!!

[RILib]

5. maybe, maybe not

I believe this type of treatment was heralded as a breakthrough against breast cancer and then found to be based on bogus research. Quite a few women went through this life-threatening ordeal for nothing because the investigator wanted to puff up his resume.

[applegrove]

6. Oh I hope it is a cure.

[Duer 157099]

7. I wonder if this works for other autoimmune diseases, like Lupus?

Sounds interesting. And it makes sense.