(Press-News.org) MINNEAPOLIS - A new study shows that intense immunosuppression followed by a hematopoietic stem cell transplant may prevent disability associated with multiple sclerosis (MS) from getting worse in 71% of people with relapsing-remitting MS for up to 10 years after the treatment. The research is published in the January 20, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found that in some people their disability improved over 10 years after treatment. Additionally, more than half of the people with the secondary progressive form of MS experienced no worsening of their symptoms 10 years after a transplant.
While most people with MS are first diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS, marked by symptom flare-ups followed by periods of remission, many people with relapsing-remitting MS eventually transition to secondary progressive MS, which does not have wide swings in symptoms but instead a slow, steady worsening of the disease.
The study involved autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplants, which use healthy blood stem cells from the participant's own body to replace diseased cells.
"So far, conventional treatments have prevented people with MS from experiencing more attacks and worsening symptoms, but not in the long term," said study author Matilde Inglese, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Genoa in Italy and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "Previous research shows more than half of the people with MS who take medication for their disease still get worse over a 10-year period. Our results are exciting because they show hematopoietic stem cell transplants may prevent someone's MS disabilities from getting worse over the longer term."
The study looked at 210 people with MS who received stem cell transplants from 1997 to 2019. Their average age was 35. Of those people, 122 had relapsing-remitting MS and 86 had secondary progressive MS and two had primary progressive MS.
Researchers assessed participants at six months, five years and 10 years after their transplants.
Five years into the study, researchers found that 80% of the people experienced no worsening of their MS disability. At the 10-year mark, 66% still had not experienced a worsening of disability.
When looking at just the people with the most common form of MS, researchers found 86% of them experienced no worsening of their disability five years after their transplant. Ten years later, 71% still experienced no worsening of their disability.
Also, people with progressive MS benefited from stem cell transplants. Researchers found that 71% of the people with this type of MS experienced no worsening of their disability five years after their transplants. Ten years later, 57% experienced no worsening of their disability.
"Our study demonstrates that intense immunosuppression followed by hematopoietic stem cell transplants should be considered as a treatment for people with MS, especially those who don't respond to conventional therapy," Inglese said.
Limitations of the study include that it was retrospective, did not include a control group and the clinicians who helped measure participants' disability were aware that they had received stem cell transplants, so that could have led to bias. Inglese said these limitations will be addressed in future research.
INFORMATION:
The study was supported by the Italian Multiple Sclerosis Foundation and the Elena Pecci Research Fund.
Learn more about multiple sclerosis at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology's free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life® on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
When posting to social media channels about this research, we encourage you to use the hashtags #Neurology and #AANscience.
The American Academy of Neurology is the world's largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals, with over 36,000 members. The AAN is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.
For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit AAN.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
The new tech elite share distinct views setting them apart from other segments of the world's elite more generally, according to a study published January 20, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Hilke Brockmann from Jacobs University Bremen, Germany, and colleagues.
The global economic landscape over the last half-century is marked by a shift to a high-tech economy, dominated by the "Big Nine" (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, and Tencent), computer hardware and software manufacturers, and most recently, app companies. In this study, Brockmann and colleagues investigate the worldviews of the 100 richest people in the tech world (as defined by Forbes).
Though the authors initially approached all 100 of their subjects for a face-to-face ...
In the Early Bronze Age of Europe, ancient people used bronze objects as an early form of money, even going so far as to standardize the shape and weight of their currency, according to a study published January 20, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Maikel H. G. Kuijpers and C?t?lin N. Popa of Leiden University, Netherlands.
Money is an important feature of modern human society. One key feature of money is standardization, but this can be difficult to identify in the archaeological record since ancient people had inexact forms of measurement compared with today. In this study, the authors assessed possible money from the Early Bronze Age of Central Europe, comparing the objects based on their perceived - if not ...
The onset date of the yearly rainy season reliably predicts if seasonal drought will occur in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa that are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity, and could help to mitigate its effects. Shraddhanand Shukla and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Climate Hazards Center, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on January 20, 2021.
Climate-driven seasonal drought can impact crop yields and is among major contributors to food insecurity, which can threaten people's lives and livelihoods. In the last ...
There may be over 34,000 street cattle in the Indian city of Raipur (one for every 54 human residents), with implications for road accidents and human-cattle conflict.
INFORMATION:
Article Title: A population estimation study reveals a staggeringly high number of cattle on the streets of urban Raipur in India
Funding: The author(s) did not receive any specific funding for this work. However, this work is a part of the Doctor of Philosophy thesis of one of the authors, BKS, who is getting a Junior Research Fellowship under the scheme CSIR-UGC NET for JRF [Sr. No. 2121530765. ...
Fixed dose combinations of antibiotics are consumed in huge quantities globally, but 80 percent of combinations are not on the WHO Essential Medicines List, and 92 percent are not FDA-approved, - with inappropriate combinations risking inefficacy, toxicity, and selection for antimicrobial resistance
INFORMATION:
Article Title: High global consumption of potentially inappropriate fixed dose combination antibiotics: Analysis of data from 75 countries
Funding: We received no specific funding for this work.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241899
...
Daddies' girls? Female Bengalese finches prefer their father's song to that of other birds throughout their lives - while sons lose this preference as they grow up.
INFORMATION:
Article Title: Sex differences in the development and expression of a preference for familiar vocal signals in songbirds
Funding: This work was supported by MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI Grant, Numbers 17H06380 to KO & 17J07023 to TGF. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. (https://www.jsps.go.jp/index.html)
Competing Interests: The authors have declared ...
Boston, Mass. -- Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most common form of cancer of the kidney. In 2018, there were an estimated 403,000 new cases of RCC and 175,000 deaths due to kidney cancer worldwide. Currently, the 5-year survival rate for patients with metastatic RCC is only about 12 percent. Current treatments include inhibitors of the VEGF and PD-1 pathways. However, resistance to therapy occurs in most patients and new combination treatments are still needed to enhance the efficacy of these current approaches.
Now, investigators have demonstrated that ACE2 expression is a good prognostic factor in RCC, that loss ...
Catnip and silver vine have been known as cat attractant plants. Cat lovers use dry leaves of these plants and toys stuffed with the leaves to give joy to their pet cats. But how does this work? What is the biological significance of the responsive behavior? A research group at Iwate University, Nagoya University, Kyoto University, and University of Liverpool found that the behavior had more practical reasons than getting euphoria.
"The first appearance of silver vine ("Matatabi" in Japanese) as a cat attractant in literature in Japan dates back to more than 300 years ago. A folklore Ukiyo-e drawn in 1859 shows a group of mice trying to tempt some ...
Scientists at the University of Southampton and University of Edinburgh have developed a flexible underwater robot that can propel itself through water in the same style as nature's most efficient swimmer - the Aurelia aurita jellyfish.
The findings, published in Science Robotics, demonstrate that the new underwater robot can swim as quickly and efficiently as the squid and jellyfish which inspired its design, potentially unlocking new possibilities for underwater exploration with its lightweight design and soft exterior.
Co-author Dr Francesco Giorgio-Serchi, ...
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered a new genetic disorder characterized by developmental delays and malformations of the brain, heart and facial features. Named linkage-specific-deubiquitylation-deficiency-induced embryonic defects syndrome (LINKED), it is caused by a mutated version of the OTUD5 gene, which interferes with key molecular steps in embryo development. The findings indicate that the newly identified pathway may be essential for human development and may also underlie other disorders that are present at birth. The information will help scientists better understand such diseases--both common ...
