SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
Cancer Drug Shows Promise Against MS
from USA Today
A leukemia drug was about 70% more effective than a standard therapy in treating early multiple sclerosis, according to clinical trial results in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.
In multiple sclerosis, or MS, the immune system attacks myelin, the sheath that enables nerve cells to conduct impulses between the brain and other parts of the body.
The drug, alemtuzumab, is a monoclonal antibody that depletes the body of the white blood cells that attack myelin, which are eventually replaced by new white blood cells that don't. For reasons not yet clear, though, alemtuzumab raised patients' risk of autoimmune diseases of the thyroid or platelets, and one study participant died as a result.
Read more...
Science in the Media
Newspapers:
Magazines and Web Sites:
The Science-Media Intersection:
Subscribe to Our Content!
Visit our RSS Feeds page to choose among 13 customized feeds, or create a free My AmSci account to request an email notice whenever a specified author, department or discipline appears online.