Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: ★★★★★ I have many patients with MS who have unrealistic expectations of what we can do for them and/or what our MS service has to offer. For example, I may get asked why we don’t have or own counsellors to offer bespoke cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or own physiotherapists for fatigue management, exercise instruction or falls prevention. Another is why can’t I...
This was not the oral pill used in MS, but the variant injected into the skin. Although cladribine does not typically cause very marked loss of lymphocytes, it happens in a very small number of individuals • We report a case of lethal influenza A infection with severe lymphopenia in an MS patient receiving s.c. cladribine. •Cladribine-related lymphopenia is usually mild to moderate, however...
Dr Ide Smets discusses the Veloce study and its implications for managing MS. Bar-Or et al. Effect of ocrelizumab on vaccine responses in patients with multiple sclerosis: The VELOCE study. Neurology October 06, 2020; 95 (14) Objective: The phase IIIb VELOCE study (NCT02545868) assessed responses to selected vaccines in ocrelizumab (OCR)-treated patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis...
ProfG has been talking about the nomenclature surrounding MS, because it matters in what can be done for people with MS. You may view him like “Atlas” with the Weight of the MS World on his shoulders. However, with all the running he has been doing, he has turned into “Stick-boy” and the weight of MS is crushing him as he gains a few bruises from dealing with the...
You have been saying that pharma have been doing nothing to target progressive MS, but you are wrong and here is another example. In this study they have made an inhibitor of migroglial cell/macrophage activation and they say it inhibits progression in animals and so imply it may be useful for progressive MS. However targeting microglia will infuence the processes occuring during relapsing EAE...
I would like to say thank you, thank you and thank you for your kind donations towards the Barts-MS coronavirus antibody study. With gift aid, we have now passed the £10,000 milestone and will be able to start the first phase of the study. This is great news. To raise the additional money I won’t be running a double-marathon, but we have taken up your suggestion of hosting a series of...
The following is our journal club from 28th September and was presented by Dr Ben Jacobs. Briggs et al. Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors α7 and α9 modifies tobacco smoke risk for multiple sclerosis. MSJ First Published September 14, 2020 Research Article Introduction: Tobacco smoke exposure is an established risk factor for multiple sclerosis (MS), yet how it confers risk is not known. Evidence...
Recently there has been a debate on whether humans myelinate like animals and the suggestion was that in MS they may not. Yet we are ploughing huge resource into animal experiments to find repair agents for humans To work on animals, you typically have to have ethical approval and in Europe you need to consider reduction, refinement and replacement of animals in research. Each year we have to...
Antibodies againts the CD19 marker on B cells can clear out B cells from the blood and to some extent the lymph glands, but antibody doesn’t get into the brain very well and so will not clear out the brain very well. Even if it did get in the brain, as the antibodies often need natural killer cells/neutrohils to mediate the destuction and these cells are not attracted into the brain. T...
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: ★★★★★ Good news for people with MS living in the US. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society is acknowledging that autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant (AHSCT) is an effective treatment for MS as is recommending AHSCT a useful treatment option for pwMS who have substantial breakthrough disease activity despite treatment with high-efficacy DMTs or have...