June 16, 2010 – By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent – Telegraph-UK
Experts predict that the discovery could lead to early treatment to prevent the disease harming patients.
At present doctors have no way of picking up MS before symptoms develop and patients are frequently diagnosed quite late.
But now a team of Israeli doctors and scientists have found “chemical markers” on blood that will lead to a test for the disease.
Professor Anat Achiron, of Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Medicine, has uncovered a way of detecting MS years before the illness hits sufferers.
“We are not yet able to treat people with MS to prevent the onset of the disease but knowledge is power,” said Professor Achiron.
“Every time we meet a new patient exhibiting symptoms of MS, we must ask ourselves how long this has been going on.
“We can diagnose MS by brain MRI scans, but we’ve never been able to know how ‘fresh’ the disease is.”
Her findings are published in the journal Neurobiology of Disease.
If doctors can predict the onset of MS early enough, intervention therapies using drugs such as Copaxone or beta-interferon drugs that stave off MS symptoms might be used.
“We theorised that if we looked at the gene expression signature of blood cells in healthy people, we could look for possible biological markers that characterise those who subsequently developed MS,” said Professor Achiron
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