‘Liberation therapy’ ineffective for treating MS, Canadian study concludes

A long-awaited Canadian patient trial of a controversial treatment for multiple sclerosis known as “liberation therapy” has concluded the procedure is ineffective and should be avoided.

Liberation therapy involves opening up narrowed veins in the neck, a procedure that an estimated 3,000 Canadians with MS have undergone in clinics outside Canada at a cost of many thousands of dollars each. The experimental therapy is not approved in Canada.

The procedure was first put forward in 2009 by Dr. Paulo Zamboni, who asserted that narrowed veins in the neck could cause iron deposits to create lesions in the brain, leading to multiple sclerosis.

The Italian vascular surgeon dubbed the condition chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, or CCSVI, and cited dozens of cases of patients who improved after he performed the treatment, known as a venoplasty.

But Dr. Anthony Traboulsee, a MS specialist at the University of British Columbia who headed the clinical trial involving 104 Canadians with MS, said researchers found no overall difference in outcomes between patients who received the vein widening therapy and those who got a sham procedure.

“The major finding was looking at the patient-reported outcome of quality of life and the most important finding of that was that there was no difference at either 72 hours (post-procedure) or at the end of study, week 48, in terms of change in the measurement for either group,” said Traboulsee.

“So both groups looked exactly the same at the end of study, and that was whether we looked at the physical score or the mental composite score or the fatigue scale or the pain scale – all the scales showed exactly the same thing.”

MS is considered an autoimmune disease: the body’s immune system attacks the protective coating around nerve cells, called myelin, impeding the cells’ ability to conduct electrical signals and leading to problems with movement, sensation and cognitive function.

The cause of the disease is unknown.