COVID-vaccines-DMT_BartsMS-guidance_20210211 So there it is, our latest “final” advice based on (i) what we believe the evidence tells us and (ii) high-level decisions within our healthcare environment. We’ve also listened to our colleagues, in- and outside of BartsMS, and mind you there are people with strong views… Only joking! The major change has been our Trust’s...
Addressing lack of vaccine confidence in ethnic minorities
Evidence is only a small part of changing practice. A relatively recent reminder of this truism was our effort to convince colleagues across the UK to use ‘atraumatic’ instead of old school ‘cutting’ needles for lumbar punctures (LP) given the former have far fewer adverse effects than the latter, mainly of so-called ‘post-LP headache syndrome’. Although we...
BartsMS COVID-19 vaccine advice – update
The advice I posted on 29 Dec is already outdated. Meantime NHS England decided to introduce the 3 month gap between 1st & 2nd dose of any of the vaccines currently available in the West, and only a couple of days ago did the latest mRNA vaccine (Moderna) receive the green light from the MHRA. We have therefore updated our advice – here it is: COVID-vaccines-DMT-BartsMS...
BartsMS COVID-19 vaccine advice
Following on from ProfG’s vaccine-post yesterday, I’ve now uploaded the vaccine advice BartsMS have produced for pwMS. As always with such documents, it is going to age rather quickly as new evidence emerges. COVID-vaccine-guidance-in-MS_final_1.3 I support ProfG’s view 100% that you should have the vaccine, unless there are specific contra-indications. I also agree that...
MS Society’s press release on ChariotMS
CHARIOT-MS-PR_FINAL_20201116
ChariotMS is on a roll…
I’ve been neglecting my blogging duties, but I have an excuse, which is that I had the team and myself on ‘slogging’ duties to get ChariotMS underway:-) ChariotMS is an ‘investigator-led’ trial, and that really means doing all related jobs yourself, from protocol writing to participant-information & consent sheets, case report forms, database, statistics...
MSVirtual2020: ChariotMS
Whilst COVID-19 continues to be rather all-consuming, we’ve been extremely fortunate signing all relevant contracts at the start of the pandemic enabling us to keep the momentum of ChariotMS. Recruitment was meant to start this month, however COVID-19 threw us a final dummy, and we are now on course to enrol the first participant in Jan 2021. I can hardly describe how excited I am this...
Self-monitoring turbocharged
We recently published this summary of our good intentions to (i) improve systematic follow-up using simple tools, (ii) listen to the feedback of pwMS and (iii) develop a yet closer collaboration with the MS Society’s UK MS Register (). Conceived well before the pandemic broke out, the concept of “assisted self-monitoring” developed new urgency in the light of #MSCOVID-19. The...
Skin reactions with cladribine
Since 2014, i.e. three years before cladribine tablets were EMA licensed for highly active MS, we have treated well over 200 pwMS using injectable (s.c.) cladribine as an off-label immunotherapy. This has been a well received programme that helped a number of pwMS access treatment, who were either not eligible for licensed disease-modifying treatments (DMT), or chose our off-label offering over...
#MSCOVID19 – Updated ABN guidance on MS DMT during the pandemic
Thanks to @drruthdobson I’ve just received the new ABN guidance on MS disease modifying treatment during the COVID-19 crisis. This updates last week’s document shared here: . ABN-Guidance-on-DMTs-for-MS-and-COVID19-APPROVED-18-March-v-3 The main change is related to NHS England having relaxed the eligibility criteria for natalizumab (Tysabri) in order to enable using the drug instead...