This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Zamboni's recent work on chronic cerebro-spinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI) has increased interest in vascular conditions in people with MS. Canadian researchers have now looked at 8,983 people with MS enrolled in the North American Research Committee on Multiple Sclerosis Registry, and analysed them according to whether they had vascular conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and so on. They found that having a vascular condition at the onset of MS resulted in around a 50% increased risk of having difficulty walking; for those who developed a vascular condition later, there was also roughly a 50% increased risk of difficulty walking. The risk increased the more vascular conditions a person had. Whereas it took about 19 years for a person with MS who did not have any vascular conditions to need assistance with walking, it took only 13 years for someone with a vascular condition.

The researchers concluded that research was needed on the mechanisms by which vascular disease influences disability, whether treating the vascular conditions can reduce MS progression, and the role of lifestyle management in MS. What they didn't say was that there may well be a correlation with vascular conditions in other parts of the body and CCSVI, given that we know that people with vascular disease in one part of the body are likely to have or develop it in others.

http://www.takingcontrolofmultiplesclerosis.org/article_pdfs/vascular_and_MS_118.pdf

Thanks for the article!!! I had read the abstract in Pubmed before, but I couldn't find it.

For me this is probably the most important article to date from a patient point of view. This can really be helpful while looking for treatment.

vascular doctors do not care whether MS is caused by CCSVI. They only need to know that to remove a stenosis in a MS patient is ethical. This article shows such a thing.

Thanks again, and I hope this will help us all in our "doctor quest".

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You can get a worldwide list of available sites for CCSVI at http://www.ccsviclinic.info

This study was conducted over the last five years, don't think these doctors were looking at Dr. Zamboni's work at all.

They were specifically looking at "comorbidity"- an unrelated disease which occurs with another disease. So, right off the bat, the docs are saying that MS and vascular disorders are not related. What they found was that MS patients who also had vascular disease had much higher rates of disabilities.

They considered the following diseases as vascular in nature:
Association of one or more vascular comorbidities (diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, hypercholesterolemia)

All this being said, I don't see any correlation to Dr. Zamboni's work--the vascular diseases they were looking at had a similar percentage in normal population. Really, all this study says is that if you have MS and diabetes or heart disease....you're going to be worse off. Which really isn't rocket science...but they got some money to study it.
cheer

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Husband dx RRMS 3/07
dx dual jugular vein stenosis (CCSVI) 4/09
dual stents placed 5/09
CCSVI in MS

I love this. It's like the million dollar studies to find out why 60% of Americans are obese. The answer: junkfood and inactivity. But it does give us another reason to try to stay as healthy as possible. Judi

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RRMS Diagnosed 1997
My house burned down, now I can see the moon.

My thinking is that this study was based on patient histories and maybe some stock images of veins. Nothing that would show ccsvi.

Yes, but it is important because they say that vascular comorbidity is dangerous in MS patients, and CCSVI is a vascular condition. Therefore this article offers some support to fix any vein with stenosis.

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You can get a worldwide list of available sites for CCSVI at http://www.ccsviclinic.info

that is not correct. They were describing arterial vascular disease, not venous diseases. They did not know about venous disease then

That study has nothing to do with ccsvi

But it does tell us that if you have co-morbidities of arterial disease, you are going to get sick from them. a n MS patient with arterial disease is not going to do as well as an MS patient without arterial disease

Seems obvious, but it might also seem obvious to some that MS patients who become pregnant will do worse that MS patients who are not pregnant.

the obvious is not always true

One of those involved with the study was my former neuro and I know she has not been onboard 100% with the theory.

The result is, there is a correlation between vascular conditions and the progression speed of MS.

So, may be CCSVI is a vascular condition, that has a strong impact on the progression.

Therefore I think cheerleader in this case you are wrong. The results of this study are important.

R.

I'd say you're jumping to a conclusion.

For the non medical amongst us, the link seems blindingly obvious as we consider all veins and arteries as "plumbing" and therefore all connected.

However it's not that simple, the outcome may be similar but the cause might be clearly different.

I'm pro CCSVI, in so much as I hold on to a hope that it will help my wife. However I try and stay impartial enough to absorb information for what it is and try not read too much into it.

You've read a little too much into this article.

They used the word 'vascular' in the study, but they did not mean venous, they meant arterial.

I laughed out loud yesterday, I had to explain myself to my husband, becaue I was reading the guide to interpreting your MRV from Dr. Haacke www.ms-mri.com/docs/ms-report-interpret ... mh-9pm.pdf and came across this part:


Yeah, in the past they just threw away the potentially-life-changing-for-us images of the venous system. Unnecessary, irrelevant, nothing to look for there.

Anyway, with the article considering the comorbidities of arterial damage on MS progression, that may hint that the cardiovascular system is important but really it is only hints. And it seems likely that other diseases too are made worse if the patient also has arterial disease, that this is not something specific to MS.