CCSVI DEBUNKED

[grandsons4]

Where can I find that article about minocycline?

[1eye]

Toronto Star...

Minocycline costs $600 per year.


Acne drug can treat MS, Canadian researchers find
Drug could be a ‘game changer’ due to its low price, safety and availability
Isabel Teotonio

A common acne medication called minocycline has been shown to delay the progress of multiple sclerosis for patients in the early stages of the disease, according to a new study by Canadian researchers.

The discovery is a “game changer” because the drug is safe, affordable and could affect newly diagnosed patients worldwide, said Dr. Luanne Metz, lead author of the study published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

“It’s the first cheap drug available for treating very early MS (multiple sclerosis),” said Metz, who is also a professor in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine.

“There are several generic forms of it and it’s available worldwide,” she told the Star. “There’s no reason that we can imagine that the price of this drug would be ramped up because of this indication.”

Canada has the highest rate of MS in the world, with about 1 in 340 living with the autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system, according to the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. The disease attacks myelin, the protective covering around nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord, causing inflammation and often damaging the myelin. As a result, the usual flow of signals along nerve fibres is interrupted or distorted. The generic drug minocycline — brand name is Minocin — reduces inflammation and damage to the myelin.

The research was led by clinicians and scientists at the university’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute. The Phase 3 clinical trial included 142 participants with early signs of possible MS, between the ages 18 and 60, at 12 MS clinics across Canada, in cities such as Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Halifax.

The selected participants had experienced a first attack of possible MS — known as a clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), in which early signs suggestive of MS appear on a brain MRI. Common symptoms last many days and include reduced or lost vision in one eye; double vision; or numbness, tingling or weakness in the legs and/or arms.

Many patients will go on to experience a second attack, confirming an MS diagnosis, within six months. The researchers randomized study participants to receive 100 mg twice daily of the oral drug minocycline or a placebo.

Over six months of treatment, about twice as many people in the placebo group developed MS, compared with those who took minocycline. In absolute numbers, 61 per cent of the 70 participants in the placebo group developed MS, compared with 33 per cent of the 72 people taking the acne drug.

“(Minocycline) decreases the likelihood of getting MS in that six-month period,” said study author V. Wee Yong, who’s also a professor in the university’s Department of Clinical Neurosciences.

While working in his lab about 18 years ago, Yong discovered that it seemed minocycline could effectively reduce immune cells from attacking the brain. He then collaborated with Metz to do further research.

“The findings are significant,” Yong says, because using minocycline to treat patients with early signs of MS costs about $600 a year, compared with current injectable therapies that can be more than $20,000 per year and are as effective.

The only approved treatments for those with CIS are injectables, so this provides an oral option, he says. And because minocycline has been around for 50 years, he says doctors can prescribe it without further approval from Health Canada to be used as an off-label prescription for CIS.

Across Canada, drug coverage varies from province to province. In Ontario eligible MS patients have their treatment covered through the public Ontario drug benefits program or private insurance.

“For an affordable medication that is oral and can be given immediately, I think this is very important,” Yong said. “For those living in countries that do not have access to these medications because of expense, the fact that one can get minocycline relatively inexpensively and quickly, that for me is what defines this study.”

The trial was funded by the MS Society of Canada and its affiliate Multiple Sclerosis Scientific Research Foundation.

Sylvia Leonard, interim president and CEO of the MS Society of Canada, lauded the researchers’ efforts in taking an idea from bench to bedside.

“We’re so encouraged by the results of this trial because the people who are living with MS and are going to benefit from this . . . they are going to be provided with a safe and beneficial treatment option as early as possible in the disease progress, so that’s pretty exciting.”

[grandsons4]

Thanks.