July 2015
2015-07-24 11:42
For people with multiple sclerosis who choose to take medications, identifying which one or ones will be effective is a challenge and often discouraging. Now a team in Italy has discovered a specific gene mutation that may eventually help bring personalized medicine to multiple sclerosis patients.
Personalized medicine is an emerging field, and the area that is getting the most action is in cancer treatment. However, Federica Esposito, MD, PhD, and her team at San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan may now know why certain people with MS respond differently to different medications for the disease, such as interferon-β (IFNβ)
Interferon-β medications are similar to the interferon that the body produces naturally in response to disease. Although experts do not entirely understand how these medications work, they do know they have an impact on the immune system, fight viral infections and inflammation, and help prevent loss of myelin (demyelination).
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