Addition To Ruvo Center's Ms Staff Expected To Improve Research, Treatment Options

The Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, its services for multiple sclerosis strained by a heavy patient load, has expanded its MS staff. That means fewer patients will end up in hospital emergency rooms for expensive treatment.

The expansion also allows the clinic to start participating in two international trials in the next two months, according to Dr. Timothy West, director of the MS program. Physician/researcher Dr. Le Hua and social worker Joanne Fairchild will join him in helping patients with the neuromuscular disorder.

One of the trials will study the drug Siponimod, designed to slow or stop progression of the most severe form of the disease.

About half of the people with MS end up with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, the most severe form of the disease and one we cant really treat, so the patient goes steadily downhill, West said. This is a very important trial to me on both a professional and personal level. My mother has secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, as do far too many of my patients.

The other drug trial involves the oral medication Gilenya, already used by patients in earlier stages of the disease. Though data suggest it has neuro-protective effects, it carries cardiac and liver side effects. Researchers hope to find out if the drug can be effective at a lower dosage.

MS, an often debilitating disorder for 400,000 people nationwide and an estimated 2,500 in the Las Vegas Valley, forces the bodys immune system to eat at the protective sheath covering a persons nerves, a process interfering with the communication between the brain and the rest of the body.

People with severe cases of MS early symptoms include blurred or double vision, thinking problems, clumsiness or lack of coordination, loss of balance, numbness, tingling, weakness in an arm or leg may lose the ability to walk or even speak.

Some patients require attention for the unpredictable flare-ups associated with the neuromuscular disorder.

Ive been booking out three or four months in advance on appointments and couldnt see people urgently when they had flare-ups, said West, who has directly handled more than 2,500 patient visits. I had to rely on local emergency departments.

A flare-up, also referred to as an attack or relapse, often refers to an MS patient developing a new symptom or a regular problem becoming worse. For example, an individual who has had numbness in his right leg no longer can feel anything below the knee.

See more here:
Addition To Ruvo Center's Ms Staff Expected To Improve Research, Treatment Options