Participants will be assigned to randomly receive AHSCT or one of the best available drugs. Investigators plan to enroll 156 adults 18-55 years of age at 19 sites in the United States and the United Kingdom.

“However, we need to be certain that the benefits of this form of treatment outweigh its serious risks.” Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (part of NIH), said in a statement. “AHSCT has the potential to halt the progress of relapsing MS, eliminate the need for a person to take lifelong medication, and allow the body to partially regain function,” Anthony S. The results of other research suggest AHSCT may treat MS effectively, but no one has formally compared this experimental therapy directly to third-line drugs. First- and second-line drugs may not be effective, while third-line drugs can control severe MS, but may cause debilitating side effects. The FDA has approved more than a dozen drugs to treat the disease, each varying in cost and efficacy. More than 1 million Americans suffer from MS. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is providing funding for a study of FDA-approved drugs and autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT) to see which is more efficacious and cost-effective for treating severe forms of relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS). By Jonathan Springston, Editor, Relias Media

Stem cell treatment of ms