Two Out of Three New MS Drugs Found Effective in Study

The first head-to-head trial of three FDA-approved drugs for multiple sclerosis has found that two are equally effective at reducing symptoms, while treatment with the third is indistinguishable from no treatment. Both Copaxone and Betaseron showed significant benefits in treating relapsing-remitting MS, a form of the disease in which patients have periodic remission of symptoms, but Avonex produced no benefit, researchers from Wayne State University reported Wednesday at a meeting of the American Neurological Assn. in Seattle.

Copaxone, a polymer developed in Israel, is administered daily by injection under the skin. Betaseron is a genetically engineered form of interferon beta-1b that is injected every other day. Avonex is a genetically engineered form of interferon beta-1a that is injected into muscle once a week.

Dr. Omar Khan and his colleagues enrolled 156 patients into the study, allowing each to choose the treatment they desired. Forty chose Avonex, 41 chose Betaseron, 42 chose Copaxone and 33 elected to forego treatment. Each patient was evaluated for 12 months.

Khan found that the patients taking Copaxone or Betaseron had a significantly reduced rate of relapse and a significant reduction in their scores on the Expanded Disability Status Scale, a measure of the seriousness of symptoms, compared to the untreated group. Those taking Avonex, however, showed no benefits compared to those who were untreated.

More information is available at https://www.nmss.org or by calling the Wayne State University MS Center at (313) 966-9407.

Hopeless Attitude Can Affect Cancer Patients

A positive fighting spirit, contrary to the claims of many practitioners of alternative medicine, does not increase a woman’s chances of beating breast cancer, according to British researchers. But a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness can have a moderate detrimental effect and serious depression can significantly reduce her chances of survival, they said.

“Women can be relieved of the burden of guilt that occurs when they find it difficult to maintain a fighting spirit,” a team from the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sheffield wrote in Saturday’s Lancet. “For clinicians treating breast-cancer patients, the results reinforce the need to detect a response of helplessness or hopelessness and serious depression and treat these responses vigorously to help women improve quality of life and optimize length of survival.”

Another common belief, dating back hundreds of years, is that the onset of breast cancer is triggered by stress. A second report, in Saturday’s British Medical Journal, indicates that this belief is also false.

Dr. David Protheroe and his colleagues at the University of Leeds studied 332 women in that community. They found that women with breast cancer were not likely to have experienced more stress in their lives than those diagnosed with a benign breast lump. The presumed association between stress and breast cancer, they speculate, probably arose because women undergo a large number of stressful events during their lives. About two-thirds of the women in the study had undergone a stressful experience in the preceding five years.

Alcohol, Coffee Might Reduce Stroke Damage

A slug of alcohol followed by a quick cup of coffee is just as effective at preventing stroke damage as many currently used drugs, at least in laboratory rats. Dr. James Grotta and his colleagues at the University of Texas in Houston reported Wednesday at the American Neurological Assn. meeting in Seattle that the combination is almost completely effective, but that much more work needs to be done.

Alcohol alone made the stroke worse, Grotta said. And coffee alone had no discernible effect. But the combination--the equivalent of one drink of alcohol and two to three cups of coffee--reduced stroke damage by 80%. Don’t try this at home, he added, until more research has been carried out.

Treatment Could Aid Age-Related Blindness

Treatment with a light-sensitive medication and laser light beamed into the eye can substantially reduce the risk of blindness in patients with so-called wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness in people older than 50. In wet AMD, leaky blood vessels grow over the retina--the light-sensitive portion of the eye--producing blinding scar tissue. An estimated 200,000 new cases of wet AMD are diagnosed in the United States each year.

In the treatment, a light-sensitive drug called verteporfin is injected into the arm. The drug binds to certain fats in blood vessels, especially damaged ones such as those in the eye. Ten minutes later, a weak red laser beam is aimed into the eye. The light is too weak to damage the eye, but it activates the drug, causing the release of reactive oxygen molecules that seal off leaks and stop the growth of blood vessels.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University led a study of the technique, called photodynamic therapy, on more than 600 patients at 22 medical centers. They reported in the October Archives of Ophthalmology that 67% of the treated patients retained vision, compared to only 39% of those receiving a placebo treatment. The treatment is beneficial only if used before vision is severely damaged, however.

More information on the treatment is available at https://www.visudyne.com and the article is available at https://www.archophthalmol.com.

Cigarettes May Relieve the Stress They Cause

If you smoke a cigarette to relieve stress, chances are you are simply creating more stress by the act of smoking, according to psychologist Andy C. Parrott of the University of East London. The apparent relaxing effect of smoking, he reported Sunday in American Psychologist, reflects only a reversal of the tension and irritability that develop during nicotine depletion--i.e., between cigarettes.

“Regular smokers, therefore, experience heightened stress between cigarettes and smoking briefly restores their stress levels to normal,” Parrott said.

The full text of the article is available at https://www.apa.org/journals/amp.html.

Medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II can be reached at thomas.maugh@latimes.com.