Destroying your immune system can help treat MS, study suggests

Researchers from a University in Switzerland have discovered re-booting your immune system helps treat patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), particularly young people with an aggressive strain.

Professor Roland Martin, lead author of the study which took place at the University of Zurich, has found steam cell transplants, which is currently the most effective therapy for MS, helps ’80% of patients remain disease-free long term or even forever’.

According to the study, published in the Science Translational Medicine Journal, during the treatment several chemotherapies completely destroy a patient’s immune system, including the subset of T cells which mistakenly attack their own nervous system. 

After chemotherapy, patients receive a transplant of their own blood stem cells, and the body uses these to re-build a new immune system. 

To discover this, Professor Martin’s team analysed the immune cells of 27 MS patients who received stem cell therapy and it was completed before, during and after the treatment.

Results found that although T cells had survived chemotherapy, they became ‘damaged’ and therefore no longer able to trigger a reaction, explains Professor Martin.

These findings have allowed for the treatment to be implemented in Switzerland but is unlikely to be seen in many other countries due to expenses – these types of studies cost several hundred million pounds and not many people invest in these studies unless companies are guaranteed to make money afterwards.

The University of Zurich clinic is the only one in Switzerland that is approved for this kind of treatment. 

Commenting on the issue, Professor Martin said: ‘I am therefore very pleased that we have succeeded in obtaining approval for the treatment from the Federal Office of Public Health and that health insurers are covering the costs’.

In the UK, it is estimated that around 130,000 people have MS and around 130 people per week receive a new diagnosis.

MS is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s own immune system attacks the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.   

The disease leads to paralysis, pain and permanent fatigue, among other symptoms.

Photo by CDC