CTV.ca News Staff
Date: Thu. Apr. 14 2011
A new study suggests that those suffering from severe cases of multiple sclerosis have greater problems draining blood from their brain, and raises questions about whether that condition is a cause or a symptom of MS.
Researchers at the University of Buffalo performed ultrasound scans on nearly 500 people, more than half of whom had MS. The results were published Wednesday in the journal Neurology.
Among participants who were suspected of having MS because they had one initial attack, 38 per cent also had a narrowing of veins that restricts normal outflow of blood from the brain, a condition known by the acronym CCSVI.
Fifty-six per cent of those diagnosed with MS and 89 per cent of participants with severe cases of the disease also had the blood-flow condition.
The researchers also found that 22 per cent of healthy controls had CCSVI. Some in this group were family members of patients with MS – a disease that sometimes has a genetic link.
"I think there are two key messages of the study," said Dr. Robert Zivadinov, a professor of neurology at the University of Buffalo and the study's lead researcher.
"One is certainly that CCSVI is associated with MS," he told CTV News Channel by phone from Honolulu, Hawaii, on Thursday afternoon.
"On the other hand, the fact that almost one in four (subjects) has CCSVI and has no MS, and the fact that almost 45 per cent of our subjects who had other neurologic diseases had CCSVI, clearly puts a question whether CCSVI is the cause of this disease," he said.
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