MS breakthrough for Western team

London scientists have made a breakthrough fighting the scourge of multiple sclerosis, fine-tuning MRIs to detect the disease before it ravages its victims.

This could be a real game-changer, said Dr. Bruce Bebo, who this year will decide how to invest $50million in research raised by the National MS Society in the United States.

Bebo marvelled Thursday from afar at the work of a London research team headed by Dr. Ravi Menon thats aimed at what has been an elusive target finding and treating MS before it causes physical and cognitive impairment.

The challenge is especially pressing in Canada, where MS rates are the highest in the world nine times higher than the world average.

Neurologists have long used MRIs to diagnose MS by showing damage to the protective sheath that insulates the bodys central nervous system.

Now, London researchers have fine-tuned a high-powered MRI to actually measure the amount of damage to that protective sheath called myelin as well as the deposits of iron typically found with the disease.

The team from Western University perfected the scans first on rats in a study published this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Its a huge step (forward), Menon told The Free Press.

They then tested it on people, and though that study wont be published until January, preliminary data showed that damage might be pinpointed

long before patients are traditionally diagnosed, potentially before they had suffered any ill effects.

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MS breakthrough for Western team