Not Ready for Prime Time
Commenting on the findings, Bruce Bebo, PhD, executive vice president of research, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, said the study corroborates the “growing appreciation that MS has a prodrome.”
Such a discovery might “accelerate progress toward the possibility of treating MS ever-earlier in the course of the disease, or possibly even preventing MS from occurring in the first place,” he added.
Dr. Bebo, who was not involved in this research, noted that it was conducted at a single center, is only preliminary, and “has no immediate clinical applicability.”
Also, because this pattern was identified in only 10% of individuals with MS, “an additional hurdle is whether we can identify other patterns in greater numbers of people,” he added.
This work was supported by the Valhalla Foundation; the Weill Neurohub; the Westridge Foundation; the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Multiple Sclerosis Society; the Department of Defense; the German Society of Multiple Sclerosis; the Water Cove Charitable Foundation; Tim and Laura O’Shaughnessy; the Littera Family; School of Medicine Dean’s Yearlong Fellowship, supported by residual funds from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Medical Fellows at UCSF; the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub San Francisco; the John A. Watson Scholar Program at UCSF; the Hanna H. Gray Fellowship, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; the National Institutes of Health; and the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Dr. Zamecnik received funding toward this study from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Water Cove Charitable Foundation. He declared no competing financial interests. The other authors’ disclosures are listed on the original paper. Dr. Bebo is the executive vice president of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, which provided support for the study.
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.