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Researcher's labour of love leads to MS breakthrough

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Re: Researcher's labour of love leads to MS breakthrough

#21

Post by GiraffeNecktie »

andrewvc wrote: post #3

More radical still, the experimental surgery he performed on his wife offers hope that MS, which afflicts 2.5 million people worldwide, can be cured and even largely prevented. Isn't that considered a breach of medical ethics, and generally just a bad idea?

Experimental surgery is performed all the time, perhaps every day. Sometimes surgeons just do new shit because they find themselves in a novel situation and they have to improvise but more often it's a more calculated decision: weighing the risks and urgency, informing the patient, consulting with other surgeons.

Re: Researcher's labour of love leads to MS breakthrough

#22

Post by Tichy »

streety wrote: post #18
Tichy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand being cautious about surgery, but what would be the problem with getting tested? Surely donating data to the research would be a good thing?

I've had a look on the MS Society website and the only commentary on this research I can find is this: http://www.nationalmssociety.org/news/news-detail/index.aspx... At the time that article was posted the only peer reviewed article showed a correlation between MS and reduced blood flow but no details on treatment. To my reading it seems fairly balanced in that context. To some extent I'm playing devils advocate but…

The article from the MS Society sounds very reasonable.

Re: Researcher's labour of love leads to MS breakthrough

#23

Post by andrewvc »

hallmark wrote: post #14
andrewvc wrote: post #3

More radical still, the experimental surgery he performed on his wife offers hope that MS, which afflicts 2.5 million people worldwide, can be cured and even largely prevented. Isn't that considered a breach of medical ethics, and generally just a bad idea?

The surgery may be experimental as a treatment for MS. But the procedure itself for unclogging the veins sounds fairly straightforward for vascular surgeons, Zamboni included.

I was thinking that operating on family / friends was considered a bad thing. As an example

"physicians generally should not treat themselves or members of their immediate families" because their professional objectivity may be compromised in those situations. Exceptions are allowed for "short-term, minor problems" or "in emergency or isolated settings."

http://www.aafp.org/fpm/20050300/41shou.html

Re: Researcher's labour of love leads to MS breakthrough

#24

Post by [deleted] »

blrgeek wrote: post #16
streety wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The initial studies done in Italy were small but the outcomes were dramatic. In a group of 65 patients with relapsing-remitting MS (the most common form) who underwent surgery, the number of active lesions in the brain fell sharply, to 12 per cent from 50 per cent; in the two years after surgery, 73 per cent of patients had no symptoms." Although these are big falls 65 patients is not a large group. I'm not surprise…

If 95% of the patients would have MS symptoms continue for two years at least, then having only 27% of the patients show symptoms 2 year on, is insanely significant statistically. Similarly, if the average number of active lesions stayed at 50% for a control group, and fell to 12% for the test group, that's statistically significant. Even if the group is small if the observed deviation is high then the observation is…

[deleted]

Re: Researcher's labour of love leads to MS breakthrough

#25

Post by giardini »

streety wrote: post #12
asnyder wrote: post #8

The U.S. society goes further, discouraging patients from getting tested or seeking surgical treatment. Rather, it continues to promote drug treatments used to alleviate symptoms... Statements like this make me wonder how much influence the drug industry had in this decision. Clearly it's not in their best interest for MS sufferers to get surgery and be done with it. I'm sure they rather MS sufferers take a Rx for th…

"The initial studies done in Italy were small but the outcomes were dramatic. In a group of 65 patients with relapsing-remitting MS (the most common form) who underwent surgery, the number of active lesions in the brain fell sharply, to 12 per cent from 50 per cent; in the two years after surgery, 73 per cent of patients had no symptoms." Although these are big falls 65 patients is not a large group. I'm not surprise…

Is it indeed a "small" group? Here the sample size was 65. Isn't a sample size > 30 usually enough for most studies?

That aside, given the dramatic results, wouldn't this demand immediate further investigation? Certainly first to determine how common these blockages are in MS patient?

Should blockages prove commonplace in MS patients then, since the surgical procedure's risks are known and the alternative outcome is very poor, shouldn't surgery be considered immediately in many, if not most, cases?

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