| MS can be slowed By Compiled from Times wires © St. Petersburg Times, published September 26, 2000 MS can be slowed, report says One of the drugs used to control multiple sclerosis also sharply slows the rate at which people develop the crippling nerve disease, according to researchers. The finding, from an international study halted early because the results were so strong, could help thousands of patients who currently don't get treatment until they have substantial brain or nerve damage. Researchers at the State University of New York School of Medicine at Buffalo and about 50 other U.S. and Canadian sites concluded that giving patients a drug called interferon beta-1a within weeks of the first nerve inflammation in the eye, spinal cord or lower brain cut the likelihood of developing MS symptoms within three years by 44 percent. Until now, a diagnosis of MS has followed only a second flare-up elsewhere in the central nervous system. "It's a very important finding because it really shows if one starts treatment early on, one can change the fate of a patient," delaying or even preventing the onset of the disease, said Dr. Thomas Leist, director of the Comprehensive Multiple Sclerosis Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. "It opens up a new perspective about treatment of multiple sclerosis," said Leist, who was not involved in the study, which will be published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine |
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