“Game-changer” for MS sufferers

Amazing news for people with multiple sclerosis. The progress of the condition has been halted – and in some cases reversed – by a stem cell treatment that “reboots” patients’ immune systems.

MS develops when the immune system malfunctions and begins to attack the fatty sheaths surrounding nerves in the central nervous system.

Scientists first use treatments with drugs that wipe out the defective immune system then “reboot” it by injecting stem cells into the blood. But this is a high-risk approach. Previously, patients have died after being stripped of their immune systems. However, the new approach seems to be much safer.

For the study, more than 100 patients in four countries, all with the most common kind of MS, either received a standard drug treatment or the stem cell procedure.

Three years later, there were no reported deaths and there were significant differences in the outcomes of the two groups – 60% of those receiving standard drugs had relapsed but only 6% of the stem cell group had.

One British participant, Louise Willetts, appeared completely cured. “It feels like my diagnosis was just a bad dream because I have just gone back to how I was before I got diagnosed,” she said.

Presenting the findings at a conference in Portugal, the researchers described the results as a “game-changer” that could revolutionise MS treatment.

However, it’s early days and we need more research in larger numbers of patients.