Canadian study casts doubt on Zamboni's 'liberation treatment' for MS

An experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis that has inspired hope among patients, scorn among skeptics and a cottage industry abroad has no basis in scientific fact, a new Canadian study shows.

The study, authored by researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton and published Wednesday in the online journal PLOS ONE, is the latest to cast doubt on a theory by Italian vascular surgeon Paolo Zamboni that MS is related to blockages in the main veins draining the neck.

Dr. Zamboni calls the theory chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, or CCSVI, and his pioneering procedure to widen the veins, dubbed liberation treatment by believers, has excited MS sufferers and moved thousands of them worldwide to seek the surgery.

But the McMaster study found no link between impaired blood flow or blockage in the veins. MS Researchers examined 100 MS patients and 100 people without the disease.

Lead researcher Ian Rodger said the findings bring a much-needed perspective to the debate surrounding liberation treatment.

We saw absolutely no evidence of CCSVI in the MS patients, Dr. Rodger said. Ive been in research a long time and its rare that you find results as black and white as ours.

The study was the first of its kind in Canada, and followed others that challenged Dr. Zambonis hypothesis that obstructions in the veins increase levels of iron in the brain and can trigger MS

Dr. Zamboni declined to be interviewed, but shared a letter he co-wrote to the journal refuting the McMaster study. In it, he claimed researchers used an outdated methodology and failed to examine veins in the lower neck, where he said blockages are more apt to be found.

When his hypothesis was first published in 2009, it struck a chord in Canada, where the MS rate is among the highest in the world.

But Health Canada has not approved the treatment, leaving most Canadians to pay upward of $10,000 for the surgery in the United States and elsewhere.

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Canadian study casts doubt on Zamboni's 'liberation treatment' for MS