New Treatment for MS
There is no question that Multiple Sclerosis is a debilitating, terrible disease that afflicts millions around the world every day in its attack on the central nervous system. I know of a number of people who have had to deal with this condition in varying levels of seriousness, from having the ability to lead a completely normal life to being restricted by life in a wheelchair because of either pain or loss of sensation in the legs. A new study shows that the onset of these symptoms, or even the full-blown disease itself, can be delayed if interferon injections are started early and conducted regularly on a patient with the disease. You can read about the entire study on the Health Day web site here.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a central nervous system disorder in which the protective fatty tissue of a person’s nerve cells, myelin, is destroyed. Myelin acts as a conductor for electrical impulses between nerve cells, and the breakdown and scarring of this tissue is called sclerosis. Since the disease occurs in multiple areas of the central nervous system, it was given the name Multiple Sclerosis. As the degradation of the tissue continues, and communication between the brain and other components of the central nervous system shuts down, the symptoms of MS appear.
At present, scientists are unsure of what exactly causes the deterioration of this tissue, but it is believed that myelin is destroyed as a result of the activity of an autoimmune disease, indicating that the body is attacking its own central nervous system tissue. For most patients with the disease, they are diagnosed into one of four clinical courses of the disease. The most common of these clinical courses is Relapsing-Remitting Characteristics, in which the disease exhibits flare-ups that debilitate the patient for a short period, but it is followed by a partial or complete recovery period. To read about other courses of the disease and find out more about MS in general, click here to go to the National MS Society web site.
The interferon study consisted of 468 people and showed that 14% less of the participants that received every-other-day injections of the interferon beta-1b progressed to full-blown MS over 3 years than the participants that received the placebo. The treatment was also reported to have reduced the progression of the disability by 40%.
While the initial results of the study are encouraging, it is too early to understand the long-term impact of using interferon as a treatment, or whether its ability to deter the progression of the disease is significant after the decades most patients will have the disease. There are also possible side effects to the treatment, though they are described as benign by one of the doctors in the article. As with any treatment, as we’ve seen in other articles on this blog, patients will need to weight the risks of the treatment versus the benefits it provides. I would think people who show a more debilitating progression of the disease would be especially interested in interferon’s benefits.
Do you know anybody with the disease? Are they receiving interferon treatments? If so, what kind of side effects have they experienced over the course of treating the disease? If not, why haven’t they? There was a large portion of the scientific community that did question the efficacy of interferon as a treatment, and perhaps their decision (or the information provided to them by their doctor) was influenced by this group. Tell me your thoughts!
