Well, that didn't seem to take long for this type of therapy to keep moving forward. This is the one for women only though. Sorry guys. "Dr. Charles Bisgaier, Pipex's President, stated, "To our knowledge, this is the first gender-specific, oral, potentially disease-modifying agent that has entered later-stage clinical trials for the treatment of MS." Dr. Bisgaier went onto say, "Given the convenience of an oral drug therapy, such as TRIMESTA, we have received a lot of positive patient interest in this study and hope to continue enrolling at this positive rate." The Phase II/III clinical study is a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that will take place at seven sites in the US and will enroll up to 150 female MS patients. Investigators will administer TRIMESTA along with COPAXONE, an FDA approved therapy for MS to women between the ages of 18-50 who have been recently diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS. Previous Phase II Clinical Trial Results in Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis TRIMESTA (oral estriol) has completed an initial 22-month, single-agent, crossover Phase II clinical trial in the US for the treatment of MS in relapsing remitting patients, with highly encouraging results. The results showed the total volume and number of enhancing pathogenic myelin lesions (established neuroimaging measurements of disease activity in MS) decreased during the treatment period as compared to a six-month pretreatment baseline period. The median total enhancing lesion volumes decreased by 79 percent (p=0.02) and the number of lesions decreased by 82 percent (p=0.09) within the first three months of treatment with TRIMESTA. Following a six-month drug holiday during which the patients weren't on any drug therapies, TRIMESTA therapy was reinitiated during a four-month retreatment phase of this clinical trial. The relapsing-remitting MS patients again demonstrated a decrease in enhancing lesion volumes of 88 percent (p=0.008) and a decrease in the number of lesions by 48 percent (p=0.04) compared with original baseline scores (1),(2).
If you donated to my fundraising efforts
Here is where the money went! I'm pretty happy about that. "Two Ottawa researchers have been awarded a $2.4-million grant for their work in fighting multiple sclerosis, a chronic and often disabling disease of the brain and spinal cord. The Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada recently awarded the money to a team led by Dr. Harry Atkins and Dr. Mark Freedman, who will continue a closely watched clinical trial involving an experimental bone marrow stem cell transplant therapy. That research has seen MS symptoms slowed in some patients and even some improvements in the ability to see and walk. "The idea behind this clinical trial is to replace the diseased immune system with a new one derived from the patient's own bone marrow stem cells," said Atkins, a scientist at the Ottawa Health Research Institute, and a bone marrow transplant specialist at the Ottawa Hospital. "First, we purify and freeze the patient's stem cells, then we use strong chemotherapy to destroy their existing immune system," he said. "We then transplant the purified stem cells back into the patient. "It takes time, but eventually these stem cells will form a completely new immune system - one that does not attack the brain and spinal cord - we hope."