A chronic, often disabling disease, multiple sclerosis can cause loss of vision, numbness in the extremities, and even paralysis. MS attacks the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves. This is the body’s central nervous system. The nerve fibers can be damaged as the immune system goes to work in a mistaken attack.
Clinical trials for MS are ongoing, in the attempt to find out more about the disease, testing new treatments and trying to discover ways to better diagnose multiple sclerosis.
What are Clinical Trials?
In a clinical trial volunteers are used in research studies. The first stage of these studies is filling out a comprehensive questionnaire on your health. This will include providing information on symptoms, family history, and your own specific health history.
Clinical trials are monitored by doctors and research scientists in order to discover ways to improve health and find treatments that work for specific diseases or symptoms of specific diseases.
There are several types of clinical trials. They include:
- Searching for ways to prevent the disease
- Testing new ways to utilize a treatment that already exists
- Testing new treatments
- Testing newly developed techniques for diagnosing or screening a disease
- Testing treatments with the intent of improving the quality of life for those who have specific medical conditions
Before a clinical trial is opened to volunteers a protocol is established. This protocol determines what types of patients will be allowed into the study. For instance it will determine age, stage of disease, if the study is to be done only on men or women or if both will be included.
Other examples of protocol will include how long the study runs, what the testing procedures will be, as well as what drugs will be used and what dosages will be studied. The protocol will also determine what specific outcomes will be measured. In order to participate in a clinical trial the volunteers have to agree to the established rules laid out in the protocol.
Clinical trials are often done in order to test a new drug or piece of medical equipment to make sure it works, and that it is safe to use. A clinical trial can be set up to compare treatments in order to determine which one works better under specific circumstances. Often this is used to compare the results of a new treatment to one that is considered standard. In this case researchers will make a case for which is easiest to use safer, and more effective.
Sometimes a standard treatment will be tested in clinical trials for its safety and usability on a different segment of the population. For instance the treatment may be standard for adults, and it is tested for its safety and effectiveness on children with the same health condition.
Typically clinical trials done in the United States are required to follow strict rules that are set by the Food and Drug Administration or FDA. Clinical trials done in other countries must follow any rules governing this process.
Clinical Trials on MS
Clinical trials specific to MS are intended to research treatments, drugs, and diagnostic or screening tools targeted towards multiple sclerosis. Those participating in MS clinical trials would be those who have already been diagnosed with MS or suspected of having the disease. People living with MS volunteer for these clinical trials in the hope of one day finding a cure, as well as better treatments and therapies for the disease. These clinical studies allow doctors and researchers to further their medical knowledge of multiple sclerosis.
The number of ongoing clinical trials dealing with MS fluctuates as some are completed and others added. A trial may be international in scope, a trial that is run in all US states, or state specific. In September of 2011 there were well over a hundred clinical trials on multiple sclerosis that were in varying stages of study. This is according to the report on the National MS Society website. There is a journal available on the Internet that reports on clinical trial news, results, and available studies. This report is called The Multiple Sclerosis Quarterly Report.
Finding an MS Clinical Trial
If you have multiple sclerosis and are willing to take part in a clinical trial, researchers across the country and around the world are studying experimental therapies for the treatment of MS. Clinical trials are very important as they help decide when and if a new drug can be considered safe for use. Study participants have to be living with MS now, in order to be considered for these studies.
The National MS Society website has a search form where you can look up clinical trials in the U.S. by each specific state. There is also a way to search for a list of international trials. Besides the state, you can search trials by the type of MS that you have, or you can search by Keyword. You can find this search form here.
If you wish to look at all the studies in a given state, just select the state without choosing any type of MS or inserting any Keywords and you will be given a list of state specific clinical studies. As an example, when this article was written in September of 20ll there were eight clinical studies available for the state of Utah.