April 22, 2008

Art and Hollie's Notes From The 2008 AAN Meeting In Chicago

Each year Accelerated Cure Project attends the American Academy of Neurology

American Academy of Neurology meeting 4/14/07 - 4/20/07 Chicago, IL

This year the AAN was held in the Windy City. A short flight to a
similar climate. We had a booth this year (staffed by Kristin and
volunteers Noeli and Danica McClelland) and Hollie and Art attended
the MS talks and took notes.

This year we have noted the talks we especially liked or thought were
important. You can search for "Art Pick" or "Hollie Pick" to find
them. Our notes are below.

continued...

In addition to lowering cholesterol levels, the class of drugs known as statins have also been shown to affect the immune system, and for this reason several of these drugs are being evaluated as potential MS treatments. Statins also have the benefit of being taken in pill form instead of having to be injected like current MS drugs. Results from a recent German clinical trial of statins in MS have just been published in PLOS One. (This is an open access journal so you can read it for yourself!) In this trial, 36 RRMS subjects took 80 mg of atorvastatin (aka Lipitor) for nine months. If they were on IFN-beta already, they continued with this treatment as well, otherwise they took atorvastatin by itself. MRI and other measurements taken at months 6 and 9 were compared with the same measurements taken at baseline (prior to administration of atorvastatin). continued...