New Treatment for Multiple Sclerosis – fox15abilene.com

A new treatment is available for multiple sclerosis patients.

Amber Lee, KTVU , KXVA 12:20 PM. CDT April 03, 2017

We spoke with a woman whos been living with MS for 15 years. She says this is a life-changing disease ad that much more research needs to be done.

MS is a horrible disease, Carol Schumacher said.

Schumacher was diagnosed with progressive MS in 2002. She says the newly approved drug, Ocrelizumab by Genetech, is significant because no one knows the cause of MS nor is there a cure.

Any bit of hope for improvement is significant in our lives.

The disease can lead to paralysis and cognitive disease.

It certainly changed my life dramatically. I had to look at my life ending in a wheelchair and severely debilitated.

She says she wasnt able to walk more than two blocks without assistance and designed her home to accommodate an elevator.

Its the most common crippler of young to middle age adults, with the exception of brain injuries, Doctor Stephen Hauser said.

Dr. Hauser, the chairman of UCSFs neurology department, oversaw the clinical trials for the drug. He says there are other drugs that treat MS, but Ocrelizumab is the most effective and with few side effects.

It will be sold under the brand name Ocrevus by Genetech.

The company said in a statement, We believe Ocrevus, given every six months, has the potential to change the disease course for people with MS, and we are committed to helping those who can benefit gain access to our medicine.

Our hope is that with a highly effective drugand apparently safe drug like Ocrelizumabthe long-term course will be far more favorable.

Researchers say its most effective for relapsing MS, the more common form of the disease. Dr. Hauser says the drug can buy patients valuable time but Schumacher says two to three years of clinical trials may not give the full picture of side effects.

Those are things that we need to watch over in the long-term.

In Schumachers case, it wasnt a drug, but an angioplasty treatment -- where balloons were used to open up her veins -- that she credits with giving her back quality of life.

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