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I don’t know how significant this is, but Devin Hubbard of the Hubbard Foundation here in San Diego just posted on Facebook, CCSVI In Multiple Sclerosis:

“just found our first parkinson's patient positive for CCSVI.”

As you probably know, Zamboni found no CCSVI in the Parkinson’s controls in two of his studies. Maybe Hubbard is using more advanced MRI. http://www.facebook.com/pages/CCSVI-in- ... 1282022297

If it is generalized; that is a big news

On reviewing the two Zamboni studies that included Pakinson’s patients I realized that Zamboni used Doppler, not MRI, to detect CCSVI. In Zamboni’s “Chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency in patients with multiple sclerosis” he also used venography, but since no “other neurological disease” patients had CCSVI per Doppler screening, no such patients were checked by venography to see if they had CCSVI. Therefore, it could well be that the reason Hubbard found CCSVI in a Parkinson’s patient and Zamboni did not, is that MRI is a better tool for finding CCSVI.

Algis, I agree that if other Parkinson’s patients are found to have CCSVI, this is big news. And, of course, we’ll have to see what happens when CCSVI is treated in Parkinson’s patients.

buffalo found ccsvi in over 40% of people with other non=ms neurological diseases.


Finding it in no way assumes that fixing the ccsvi will help the parkindsons. We aren't talking venocentric lesions, we're talking dopamine imbalance.

ALL degenerative neurological & neuromuscular diseases without a proven cause- (not just theorical causes) will all be looked at with a focus now- and I'll bet that may things will be uncovered. This is exciting news for many patients that have suffered with little but hope in the past.
We should welcome anyone that has CCSVI and encourage their ability to get it repaired if possible.

Hope has a new meaning......

The reason Zamboni is not a fan of MRV is that it doesn't indicate flow, it only shows architecture. We spoke about this personally last year in Bologna, since my husband was diagnosed via MRV.

He did not find flow issues in people with other neurological disease, and it remains to be seen if the problem noted in this one particular patient can be helped. Parkinsons involves iron deposition (which can also just indicate cellular death of brain tissue), but is not venocentric and not relapsing and remitting (things that indicate venous flow issues)

More to come. But I know what Dr. Z would be saying...."Look at the flow!"

cheer

cheerleader wrote:The reason Zamboni is not a fan of MRV is that it doesn't indicate flow, it only shows architecture. We spoke about this personally last year in Bologna, since my husband was diagnosed via MRV.

He did not find flow issues in people with other neurological disease, and it remains to be seen if the problem noted in this one particular patient can be helped. Parkinsons involves iron deposition (which can also just indicate cellular death of brain tissue), but is not venocentric and not relapsing and remitting (things that indicate venous flow issues)

More to come. But I know what Dr. Z would be saying...."Look at the flow!"

cheer

Hubbard is using fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging). This is new technology which can see blood flow direction. Conventional MRI cannot do that.

I would be interested if Hubbard is imaging controls, and if so how many people with no neurological disorder have CCSVI. Is Hubbard only looking at people with some neurological condition or other ?

ozarkcanoer

David1949 wrote:
Hubbard is using fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging). This is new technology which can see blood flow direction. Conventional MRI cannot do that.

fMRI is intracranial- won't cover the jugulars.

Does anyone have Buffalo’s breakdown of CCSVI in other neurological disease (OND) controls? I’d like to know if all of the Parkinson’s controls had CCSVI. All I know of is Buffalo’s February 2010 press release where it does not mention the results of the OND group. http://www.adirondackgraphics.com/Buffalo_CTEVD.pdf And second-hand reports that 43% of the OND group had CCSVI ( search zivadinov on this page http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseact ... ageid=2944 ) I think evidence that Parkinson’s patients have CCSVI is good. If they have it, maybe it can be treated. My wife has Parkinson's disease.

David1949 wrote:
Hubbard is using fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging). This is new technology which can see blood flow direction. Conventional MRI cannot do that.

fMRI only takes a snapshot every two seconds or so, so it might not be the best thing for blood flow.

Although it was hailed as the biggest breakthrough in brain science, I think there's a lot of doctors looking elsewhere for the future of neuro-imaging technologies.

I wish somebody would test my friend's kid who has GBS. He has relapsed and is back in ICU. The plasmapheresis didn't last.

ozarkcanoer wrote:I would be interested if Hubbard is imaging controls, and if so how many people with no neurological disorder have CCSVI. Is Hubbard only looking at people with some neurological condition or other ?

ozarkcanoer

yes, he is looking at normals. Matter of fact, he's one of the controls
I know that the doctors are concerned about this too, OC, and are testing normals. (I'm going to volunteer--I've had an MRI before (for migraines) and don't have any lesions or known disease. Will keep you posted)
cheer

cheerleader wrote:The reason Zamboni is not a fan of MRV is that it doesn't indicate flow, it only shows architecture. We spoke about this personally last year in Bologna, since my husband was diagnosed via MRV.

He did not find flow issues in people with other neurological disease, and it remains to be seen if the problem noted in this one particular patient can be helped. Parkinsons involves iron deposition (which can also just indicate cellular death of brain tissue), but is not venocentric and not relapsing and remitting (things that indicate venous flow issues)

More to come. But I know what Dr. Z would be saying...."Look at the flow!"

cheer

Actually this makes perfect sense, since the venocentric plaques are probably caused by reverse flow, and if the blood is adequately getting out through alternative veins, no problem. It would only be when the constriction was such that it caused reflux, and this would show up on doppler and not nec. for every constriction showing up on MRV.

By the way, good expaination...archetecture, not flow. perfectly good flow might be happening through funky looking veins.

cheerleader wrote:

David1949 wrote:
Hubbard is using fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging). This is new technology which can see blood flow direction. Conventional MRI cannot do that.

fMRI is intracranial- won't cover the jugulars.

fMRI is unrelated to the flow quantification that's part of the Haacke protocol. Any MRI machine can do this (perhaps requiring an appropriate firmware package).

Flow quantification is across any particular plane, and is measured for a cardiac cycle. The graphs you see in Haacke's talk are based on movies like



and account for all major arteries and veins. And they all sum up to zero, eg conservation of mass.

They use upper and lower neck, upper and lower azygos, and vertical and horizontal sinus planes.

This is really cool and something you can't do with Doppler, which is also highly operator-dependent. Even measuring flow across one vessel requires the operator to correctly mark out the vessel.

Hubbard refers people to IRs even if the MR FQ is even close to showing reflux - the IRs have always seen worse than prediction. This is a really great sign for the use of MR, and taking both operator training and traditional radiology out of the diagnostic loop.

At some point Hubbard will publish their fMRI results. I can't wait..