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I might be posting this in the wong place but I thought I should bring this up here. Does anybody know if there is a blood test yet that will determine who will benefit from Interferons? Apparently this test measures the level of IL1 and IL17. These are two immune cells that are linked to different forms of MS. Patients that responded to IL1 responded to beta interferon but patients with IL17 don`t respond. I think I originally found this under the Avonex postings.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but it is a test to determine which of a number of drugs, including IVIg to use that was developed at the The Multiple Sclerosis Research Center Sheba Medical Center, Tel‐Hashomer, Israel.

Various immunomodulatory drugs are used in the treatment of relapsing-remitting patients with multiple sclerosis (RRMS). The effectiveness of these drugs varies among patient, therefore the clinical decision which
immunomodulatory treatment will be initiated in RRMS patients is currently
arbitrary, based on trial and error. A new laboratory method was developed to individually optimize the immunomodulatory treatment tailored per patient.
This method is of tremendous importance both to the patient and treating
physician for better management of MS

Thank you very much for your reply. How can we find out more about this blood test? Is it available in the U.S. or Canada?

I think they are waiting for their patent to be granted before they write it up.

They have been using it for about two years.

What they test, I think, is how a patient's blood reacts to Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha and each of the CRABS.

It's very interesting and makes me think we can't throw out the idea of an aberrant immune response entirely. CCSVI may set the stage but then the immune system may either over-react or under-react to the presence of iron in the brain, dead or dying neurons, etc.

Excellent idea Cece!! Sounds to me like you really could be on to something here. Any ideas how and where we could find out more about this blood test? It could prove to be a great benefit to pwMS that are either on the DMD`s or planning to take them.

lovebug wrote: Does anybody know if there is a blood test yet that will determine who will benefit from Interferons?

I think what you might be referring to is found on this thread.
http://www.thisisms.com/ftopict-11121.html

Does anybody know if this test is available in Canada yet? I have not been able to find out more information about this blood test.

http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2010/march/sclerosis.html

He said a simple, already available blood test could spare many patients the inconvenience and side effects — and spare the health-care system the expense — of a drug that most likely won’t do any good. “The other side of the coin is that beta-interferon, if it’s given only to those who are predisposed to respond to it, could turn out to be a far better drug than we ever imagined.”

Although Steinman and his colleagues do not stand to benefit in any direct way from this work, Stanford University’s Office of Technology Licensing has filed a patent application on the use of the blood test.

simple and already available (so where is it???)
I guess it needs to be confirmed in a larger patient sample but is that research underway?

Thank you CECE. I thought maybe I had missed the boat on this one. Any ideas on where we can turn to now to research this further? This could prove to be a huge benefit to us MSer`s. It seems to be such a simple test but perhaps I am wrong on that one.

If it's simple and available, a cooperative primary care doctor might be able to order it done. If I were on the interferons, I would want to know if I were in the group whom the drug helped or in the group whom the drug hurt!

ok, here's more info
http://www.nature.com/scibx/journal/v4/ ... 1.894.html

Stanford and Pfizer researchers have suggested that IL-7 and IL-17F levels together can help identify up to one-third of nonresponders to interferon therapy for multiple sclerosis. The university has spun out a new company—Atreca Inc.—to develop predictive blood tests.

Atreca...

Hi,

Your question about a test for IL-17, etc. to determine whether interferon-b will work for individual patients reminds me of this recent study:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/br ... 6436839179

The study showed that:

Interferon-beta caused patients to become far more efficient at making vitamin D in their skin

And that:

Interferon-beta only reduced the risk of having an MS attack if patients had sufficient levels of vitamin D in their system

This made me wonder if there is some relationship between the test you describe for the effectiveness of Interferon-B for individual patients, and the patients' individual vitamin D levels?

So I found this study:

http://www.msfocus.org/news-details.aspx?newsID=190

which says that Vitamin D works to reduce MS relapses by suppressing IL-17. IL-17 is one of the things the test you mentioned tests for.

So that made me wonder if what the test you mentioned does is indirectly test for how high a patient's vitamin D level is by checking to see how high their IL-17 level is?

If a patient's IL-17 level is low, that could mean that they have sufficient Vitamin D in their system for Vitamin D to be able to down regulate IL-17. In small studies Vitamin D3 has been shown to dramatically reduce Multiple Sclerosis Relapse rates:

http://www.webmd.com/multiple-sclerosis ... s-relapses

So my last question is, do the Interferon-B drugs actually work at all? Or should I say, is their mechanism of action merely that they increase vitamin D levels? And If that was the case, wouldn't it make more sense to just directly take optimal doses of Vitamin D3, instead of letting the drug boost your level, at the risk of suffering side affects?

I'm not a scientist or a doctor, and my MS does affect my cognition, so please don't make decisions based on what I say. Do your own research, and make your own decisions after consulting the the health care provider of your choice.

But I thought I'd throw my thoughts, questions and google research out here for wiser minds to contemplate.

M.A.

Thank You `thisMA` for posting that information. It certainly makes me wonder how much more we MSer`s are forced to try to figure out our own path in managing our life with MS. There is still so much to learn about MS. But how much time are we waisting waiting for trial after trial to be completed which is measured in years. How many of us believed that the big answer to our question lied in CCSVI surgery? How many of us jumped at the idea of having our prayers answered by travelling around the world if need be to have CCSVI surgery. For some who showed dramtic results I say God bless you, for those who showed minor improvements I say God bless you also. For those who showed absolutely no improvements what so ever, as was for myself, what do I say now? Keep trying? Keep trying to find the end of the rainbow and the pot of gold. Its good to dream when thats all you have left. The tears are all dried up.