Hutchens Charity 2010 celebrates the work of the MS Society of Canada

As 2009 comes to an end, the Multiple Sclerosis Society has taken stock of some of the research highlights of the year that was and is looking ahead to 2010.

Among its priorities for 2010 is a call for grant proposals to investigate the potential link between chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI) and multiple sclerosis (MS). The society has issued an international call for grant applications to look at the CCSVI hypothesis in MS.

“Working with MS Societies around the world, an international panel will be convened to conduct a joint expedited review of the grant applications submitted in order to ensure a coordinated, strategic approach to funding the best research examining the CCSVI hypothesis in 2010,” a statement from the NMSS notes.

The controversial hypothesis proposes that narrowing in the major veins draining the brain, called CCSVI, may be an early step in the disease process causing MS, and early work suggests that these lesions may respond to angioplasty. A pilot, open-label study published in December in the Journal of Vascular Surgery by lead author Paolo Zamboni, MD, director of the Vascular Diseases Center at the University of Ferrara, Italy, showed in a series of 65 patients that endovascular treatment of strictures in the extracranial cerebrospinal veins was safe in MS patients and may provide neurologic benefit.

Dr. Zamboni emphasized that their work is preliminary and urgently requires replication. “What we know is that MS is very complex and multifactorial,” Dr. Zamboni told Medscape Neurology at that time. “We have identified an unknown factor and possible treatment for that factor.”

Already, work to discover the prevalence of CCSVI in MS patients is under way, and treatment trials are being planned.

“We are interested in more research because obviously [these are] very preliminary findings about CCSVI. The society is certainly inviting investigators to apply for grant funding so that we can further investigate this and provide the appropriate guidance for people with MS,” Patricia O’Looney, MD, vice president of biomedical research at the NMSS in New York City, told Medscape Neurology.

There has been a great deal of public interest, particularly in Canada, where media reports and a documentary profiled Dr. Zamboni and colleagues’ work and MS rates are among the highest in the world.

“People with MS have been pursuing this and perhaps having unnecessary surgery, which carries a risk to it because it is invasive, but also we want to respond to any possible clue that may help us help people with MS or help us understand it.”

Lots of research in other directions is also being funded, she hastened to add, with the regular grant deadline coming up on February 3, 2010. “That’s all top priority as well.”