New Drug Treatment for Multiple Sclerosis

A study reported in the Feb. 14, 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that a drug therapy currently used to treat non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and rheumatoid arthritis had a significant effect in treating the most common form of multiple sclerosis.
The study found that the drug, rituximab, dramatically reduced the number of inflammatory lesions that form along nerve fibers in patients’ brains, which is a hallmark of the disease. It also significantly decreased the clinical symptom of the disease: sporadic, temporary disruptions in certain neurological functions, such as mobility in a limb or vision in an eye. The study of the drug, which is administered by infusion, was a 48-week, phase II trial.
Researchers say the drug targets the immune system’s B-cells, rather than the immune system’s traditionally targeted T-cells, which have long considered the primary culprit.
“The magnitude and rapidity of the drug’s effect suggest that therapies targeting B-cells may provide an important treatment strategy if proven effective and safe in larger and longer-term clinical trials,” said the principal investigator of the multi-center study, Stephen L. Hauser, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Neurology at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). “These findings shift the perspective on the cause of MS and open up a new frontier for investigation.”