OTTAWA — A team of Ottawa doctors is preparing to publish a full report on its breakthrough multiple sclerosis treatment study that has so far eliminated the disease in those treated. The experimental study began about 13 years ago as a last resort for patients who fail to improve on drug therapy and who suffer severe symptoms of MS. Snippets of the results have been published “here and there,” said, neurologist Dr. Mark Freedman, one of the leads of the program at The Ottawa Hospital, but its never been published in its entirety. No specific date has been set for its release, but the team’s findings are far from secret. With MS not returning in any of the 24 participants, patient success stories appear in news media across the country. Since the original study’s completion, about another dozen patients have been treated with all of them showing the same results. 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.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 19:05:35 +0000
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