NL study finds little change in MS from liberation treatment

Date: Thursday Jun. 7, 2012 7:03 PM ET

TORONTO Patients who underwent the so-called liberation treatment for multiple sclerosis experienced no measurable benefit from the procedure, a study commissioned by the government of Newfoundland and Labrador found.

The results of the small, observational study were announced Wednesday in St. John's by lead investigator Dr. William Pryse-Phillips, a professor emeritus of neurology at Newfoundland's Memorial University.

Pryse-Phillips said he had gone into the study hopeful the treatment might have something to offer his MS patients, but completed it convinced the people who had the vein-opening procedure didn't experience any gains.

"I am disappointed. I had hoped. I cannot recommend this therapy on the basis of these results at this time," he said during a news conference, the video of which is posted on the Department of Health and Community Service's website.

The province spent $400,000 on the study, which compared 30 patients with MS who had travelled outside the province to have the therapy and 10 who did not. Participants were subjected to an array of tests before the treatment and then at intervals of one month, three months, six months and one year post-procedure.

It was an attempt to test a theory that has driven a wedge between MS patients and the neurologists and professionals -- including those at the MS Society of Canada -- who work to advance the cause of MS sufferers.

The theory hails from Italy. Dr. Paolo Zamboni, a vascular surgeon from the University of Ferrara, has hypothesized that MS is not a neurodegenerative disease, as has been thought, but a disease resulting from collapsed veins in the neck and upper chest. He named the condition chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, or CCSVI.

Blockages in the veins of MS patients prevent blood from draining properly from the brain, and the pooled iron-rich blood damages brain tissues, Zamboni suggests. He says opening those blockages with the balloon procedure used to repair clogged arteries -- angioplasty -- offers substantial benefit to MS patients. (When applied to veins, the procedure is called venoplasty.)

Zamboni's theory has taken off, particularly in Canada.

Link:
NL study finds little change in MS from liberation treatment