New Multiple Sclerosis treatment may end with Utah woman

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) At the end of November a young mother kissed her children goodbye, and boarded a flight with her husband. It was the beginning of a medical journey that she believes has ended with miraculous results. Michelle Colledge was treated for severe Multiple Sclerosis at Johns Hopkins, in BaltimoreMaryland. She is just one of 44 patients to receive the experimental High Dose Cyclophosphamide, and may be the last.

Michelle’s husband says his wife’s MS was so severe that several times he was told to prepare for her to die. Current medications available to treat Michelle had failed. Unwilling to give up hope, they researched until they found the work being done at Johns Hopkins. It was that discovery that Michelle Colledge says saved her life, and gave her life. “It feels miraculous to me. I feel like Lazarus rising from the dead. Like was dead, and a prisoner inside my own body and now I am living again.”

In order for Michelle to live, her immune system had to die. At Johns Hopkins, she says she received the High Dose Cyclophosphamide, an older and stronger form of chemotherapy. Thirteen liters, over a course of four days, killed all of her white blood cells. She says,” I like to think of them as assassins. So, they had these instructions that were not correct, that said the brain and the spine was the enemy. So, we killed all of those cells.” Her new immune system took about three weeks to grow. Adam Kaplin M.D, PhD, at Johns Hopkins explains, “It’s a resetting of the whole immune system and these people really genuinely have a new immune system.” That immune system has no memory of MS and no longer attacks the brain and spinal chord.