علاج جديد لل Multiple Sclerosis

against multiple sclerosis, researchers say.



Alemtuzumab appears to stop progression of the disease in patients with
early stage active relapsing-remitting MS - the most common form of the
condition.

The University of Cambridge study, published in the New England
Journal of Medicine, also suggests the drug may enable repair of
previous damage.

However, it can produce potentially serious side-effects
And the researchers stress their work is still at an early stage.
Alemtuzumab - a type of drug known as a monoclonal antibody - , has been used to treat
leukaemia by killing off the cancerous white cells of the immune
system.
The latest three-year study, of 334 patients with
relapsing-remitting MS which had yet to be treated, found that the drug
cut the number of attacks of disease by 74% more than the reduction
achieved by conventional interferon-beta therapy.
Alemtuzumab also reduced the risk of sustained accumulation of disability by 71% compared to beta-interferon.
People on the trial who received the drug also recovered some
function that had been thought to be permanently lost, and as a result
were less disabled after three years than at the beginning of the
studyIn contrast, people given beta-interferon showed signs of progressively worsening disability.
This was confirmed by brain scans in which alemtuzumab patients showed
signs that their brains had actually increased in size, while the
beta-interferon patients' brains shrank over time.
The researchers said the findings suggested that alemtuzumab may allow damaged brain tissue to repair itself.
However, they stress that more work is needed to confirm the effects, before the drug can be considered for widespread NHS use.
Lead researcher Professor Alastair Compston said: "Alemtuzumab
is the most promising experimental drug for the treatment of multiple
sclerosis, and we are hopeful that the phase three trials will confirm
that it can both stabilise and allow some recovery of what had
previously been assumed to be irreversible disabilities."

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