This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Panel of multiple sclerosis experts provides best practice treatment recommendations for Tysabri.


Best-practice recommendations for the selection and management of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) who may benefit from, or are receiving treatment with Tysabri® (natalizumab) were published today in a supplement to th...e medical journal Multiple Sclerosis. More..... http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseact ... ageid=1905

Found it interesting that Biogen chose which docs would be on the panel.

Harry

I was so excited to hear that these reports had been published today and the articles are available for download for free. That is very unusual. For all of my excitement, I was very disappointed in what the articles had to say. I am treated at a very active MS center in the area where I live and these best practices have been in place as long as I have been infusing ( over 30 mos.). In addition, the authors suggest that the longer a patient is on Tysabri the higher the likelihood that PML will occur. How long is long? What is the likelihood? What other factors besides the Tysabri would cause the incident of PML to increase? So no new information was provided by this paper. In addition, they state that there is no basis for a "drug holiday" to decrease the likelihood of PML. I do not recognize that there has ever been a study conducted to look at this. I participated in a blood serum study to determine the half life of Tysabri in the system. The data has not been released yet. That information would certainly be an indication of how long a drug holiday would be needed to allow the immune system to recover, but not long enough for the MS inflammation to take hold again.

In all, the paper stated no new information and offered nothing new for those of us who have been on Tysabri long term.

I shall keep hoping and looking forward to each new paper.

Interesting quote from Elan...

“We believe that we’ll have a commercially available assay to detect JC Virus in Q1 2010. We also believe that 50% of MS patients do not have JCV. PML is JCV in the CSF. No JCV means there is very low possibility of PML. It’s a very promising development.”

Raises one question...it is generally quoted in medical papers etc. that "The virus (JC) is very common in the general population, infecting 70 to 90 percent of humans”

One only has had to follow Biogen and Elan in their marketing of Tysabri to understand why they come out with quotes you indicated above.

Harry