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Simple Eye Scan Test Could Track Progress of MS

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Bianca
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« on: October 16, 2007, 09:04:05 am »








                                   Simple eye-scan test could track progress of MS





By Julie Steenhuysen
Mon Oct 15, 4:27 PM ET
 
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A quick eye scan might offer a cheap, painless way to track the progression of multiple sclerosis, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
 
By scanning nerve fibers of the retina in the back of the eye, researchers were able to detect and measure brain shrinkage, a marker of disease progression.

"This appears to be a great way of monitoring the disease," said Dr. Peter Calabresi, director of the Johns Hopkins Multiple Sclerosis Center in Baltimore.

Multiple sclerosis or MS is thought to be an auto-immune disease in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the fat and protein myelin sheaths that protect nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

MS symptoms may include numbness or weakness in one or more limbs, partial or complete vision loss, paralysis, tingling or pain, tremors and an unsteady gait.

Nerves in the eye that lead to the optic nerve do not have this coating, allowing doctors to examine the nerve directly.

"This is one of the first pure nerve measures in MS," said Calabresi, whose study appears in the journal Neurology.

"You are actually looking at brain nerves," he said in a telephone interview.

Calabresi and colleagues used an imaging technique called optical coherence tomography, a non-invasive procedure in which light waves are bounced off the retinal layers at the back of the eye, creating high-resolution, cross-sectional images.

Researchers tested the technique on 40 MS patients, measuring the thickness of the optic nerve, which is affected early on in the disease, often before patients experience brain damage. They compared these scans to those of 15 healthy patients.

Then, they cross-checked their results with brain scans made using magnetic resonance imaging, a more costly type of scan that uses powerful magnets and radio waves.

They found a strong correlation between changes found in eye scans with those found on MRIs.

Calabresi said his team was able to validate this result in a larger, 200 patient study, which will be published in two weeks. He also plans to start a study that will follow patients over time.

The researchers believe optical scans could be used in conjunction with MRI scans, allowing doctors a cheap way to track disease progression more frequently.

He said optical scanners cost about $50,000, compared with the $2.5 million cost of an MRI.

Such scans also may prove useful as a way of testing the effectiveness of experimental drugs designed to protect nerves from the onslaught of the disease.

There is no cure for MS, which affects more than 1 million people worldwide, including an estimated 400,000 people in the United States. Symptoms often first appear between the ages of 20 and 40.
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rockessence
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« Reply #1 on: October 16, 2007, 11:06:09 am »

RE: "There is no cure for MS, "

I am so sick of hearing this.... they mean "with the help of DRUG COMPANIES !!!"

There have been people cured of MS through the use of Rock-Medicine and other "alternative" means.... I have known one personally!
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ILLIGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM

Thus ye may find in thy mental and spiritual self, ye can make thyself just as happy or just as miserable as ye like. How miserable do ye want to be?......For you GROW to heaven, you don't GO to heaven. It is within thine own conscience that ye grow there.

Edgar Cayce
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