Antibody Offers Hope for Multiple Sclerosis Treatment

[n2doc]

By Duncan Graham-Rowe of Nature magazine

The first drug to show signs of not just halting multiple sclerosis (MS), but actually reversing the nerve damage caused by the condition, has taken a significant step towards clinical approval.

The results of a phase III trial, presented on 22 October at the 5th Joint Triennial Congress of the European and Americas Committees for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis, in Amsterdam, found that 78% of patients treated with the monoclonal antibody alemtuzumab remained free from relapse after two years -- and half the relapse rate of one of the standard therapies, interferon beta-1a (marketed as Rebif, among other names).

However, alemtuzumab did not perform quite as well as it had in earlier trials. There was some evidence that it had reversed damage to nerves, but the result was not statistically significant, says Alasdair Coles, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the UK chief investigator of the Comparison of Alemtuzumab and Rebif Efficacy in Multiple Sclerosis (CARE-MS) I trial.

Coles told the meeting that magnetic resonance imaging showed that subjects taking alemtuzumab had also lost less brain volume than those taking Rebif, a proxy measure for overall tissue damage. "Alemtuzumab has eliminated the loss of brain tissue," he says.


more
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=antibody-hope-multiple-sclerosis-treatment

[markpkessinger]

1. Very encouraging news! n/t

This horrific disease is in my own family. My grandfather died from complications resulting from it, and a cousin is currently battling it. This is certainly encouraging news!