[hayley_01 (OP)]

I have been talking 2 my boyfriend,who has MS and he has been told that taking beta interferon is good.....until the doctor cant afford it anymore. A friend of his said they'd known someone who came off the drug and deteriarated rapidly.Could you tell me if this would happen and if you know of any other drugs to look into?

[chris]

Thanks Hayley - we'll look into this one for you.

On a different tack, a recently published piece of research from Swedish scientists has shown that health-care professionals who are regularly exposed to anaesthetic gases may be up to three times more likely to develop MS compared with unexposed individuals. The reason for the excess of MS cases amongst those exposed to volatile anaesthetics is not known, but certainly food for thought and an interesting observation worthy of further research. However, the results should be interpreted cautiously in the light of the small size of the study (total number of cases in the exposed group = 83).

(Reference : Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2002 60:66-68)
Chris

[NakedScientist]

Dear Hayley

we had a look into the question of whether there is any evidence that MS can worsen abruptly, or rebound, if beta interferon therapy is subsequently stopped.

According to a consultant neurologist we spoke with :

"I don't think there is evidence of "rebound" worsening on stopping treatment. In fact, one of the concerns is that the efficacy trials have tended to use short-term follow-up (2 to 3 years max.) and some have noted an apparent narrowing of the diffence between treatment and placebo groups in the later stages of these studies."

In other words there is insufficient data on long-term beta interferon therapy to determine whether it is really beneficial - hence the apparent 'narrowing' of the difference between patients with MS who were given interferon, and those who received a harmless placebo.

TNS