Province not giving up on MS therapy

The Saskatchewan Party government still hopes to enrol multiple sclerosis patients in a liberation therapy trial, despite new research casting doubt on the treatment's underlying theory.

Health Minister Dustin Duncan said Wednesday that a new Saskatoon-and B.C.-based study merely "adds to the information" government has about the link between MS and a condition called chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency.

"Our position is still the same as it was when we announced that the Albany trial was ending, is that we are going to be looking for what the next avenue of research that Saskatchewan can be involved in. ... It may be CCSVI and the liberation therapy. It may not be. And frankly, I think we have to be realistic that it's becoming more difficult to find the type of double-blind clinical trial that we were involved with in Albany," Duncan told reporters in Regina.

Saskatoon MS clinic director and University of Saskatchewan professor Dr. Katherine Knox was one of the investigators on the B.C. and Saskatchewan study. In total, 177 people were enrolled - about 70 of them from Saskatchewan. It included people with MS, their siblings, and people who have no direct family members with the disease. Researchers used the "gold standard" of vein imaging, including both ultrasound and injecting dye into veins that shows up on X-rays. The radiologists who studied the images did not know which people had MS.

They were looking for neck veins that had narrowed by at least 50 per cent. What they found was that nearly three-quarters of study participants had narrowed neck veins, regardless of whether they had the disease or not, Knox said.

The results were published Tuesday in the medical journal The Lancet. Speaking to media in the lobby of City Hospital Wednesday morning, Knox emphasized that the study did not look directly at the effectiveness of liberation therapy, but it did show narrowed neck veins aren't limited to MS patients.

"This was an important study to do because many of my patients were going out of country to get their neck veins opened. Some people may be less inclined to pursue this treatment now that our study has shown that this is a relatively common finding," Knox said.

With the procedure unapproved for use in Canada, Carol Smith of Regina was one of many MS patients who went abroad for liberation therapy. Smith, her husband John, and their son went to Tijuana, Mexico, in May 2011 to have her neck veins widened. It cost the family $14,000.

Her speech problems and trouble processing thoughts improved for a while, then returned. One lasting effect has been improved circulation to Carol's feet, which went from "scary purple" to a "wonderful flesh tone," John said. Smith said she knew the treatment was a gamble. Patients need some hope to cling to, which is why she's disappointed by this latest result, she said.

"You would always hope that there's some truth to it. It's just one of those things where there's always something coming out." John said he and his wife were prepared for the possibility that the treatment in Mexico might not help her. He said he's surprised scientists are struggling to reproduce Italian doctor Paolo Zamboni's successful results - especially in younger adults who are in the early stages of the disease.

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Province not giving up on MS therapy