May 17, 2000
The Hospital for Sick Children advances MS treatment and research
May is designated as Multiple Sclerosis month – a time to create awareness about this debilitating disease that affects nearly50,000 Canadians. Canada has one of the highest rates of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in the world, and it is the most common disease of the central nervous system in this country.
The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) recently established North America’s first paediatric MS clinic. Approximately three per cent of MS patients are under the age of 16, and about 41 new paediatric cases of MS are diagnosed in Canada each year.
"The Hospital for Sick Children and its Research Institute are uniquely poised to provide the first multidisciplinary bench-to-bedside approach to the study and care of children with MS," said Dr. Brenda Banwell, SickKids neurologist and head of Sick Kids’ MS clinic. "The establishment of the paediatric clinic will allow us to treat specific issues for children with MS, such as learning and psychosocial issues. Through this clinic and through the creation of a national registry, we also hope to develop a critical mass of patients to study for our research into the causes and treatments of Multiple Sclerosis in children."
Dr. Banwell is chair of SickKids’s Paediatric MS Interest Group, which brings together basic scientists with clinicians such as neurologists, ophthalmologists, neuropsychologists, neuroradiologists, and infectious disease specialists, to study the disease.
SickKids’s Paediatric MS Interest Group has already seen an exciting example of bench-to-bedsideresearch come to fruition. Basic science research by Dr. Mario Moscarello, senior scientist emeritus, SickKids Research Institute, and professor emeritus of Biochemistry and Lab Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto, has led to promising Phase I and Phase II clinical trials for a drug to treat MS.
In MS, the myelin covering of the nerves is inflamed or damaged, making it difficult for the nerves to transmit signals to other parts of the body. Dr. Mario Moscarello, with research grants from the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada and the Medical Research Council of Canada, has been studying the demyelination and myelin repair in transgenic, or specially bred, mice.
After trying a number of substances, Dr. Moscarello observed that Micellar Paclitaxel (a different, soluble form of paclitaxel, the active ingredient in the breast cancer drug Taxol®), curbed the activity of an enzyme that has an effect on myelin proteins. He then tried using the Micellar Paclitaxel with the transgenic mice. In the animals treated with Micellar Paclitaxel, demyelination was slowed and in some of the mice, there appeared to be myelin regrowth. With these promising results in the lab animals, Dr. Moscarello contacted Dr. Paul O’Connor, director of the MS Clinic and MS Research at St. Michael’s Hospital, about the possibility of testing the drug on adults with MS.
Vancouver’s Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the company that developed Micellar Paclitaxel, agreed to sponsor the Phase I clinical trial at St. Michael’s Hospital involving 29 patients with secondary progressive MS, the most chronic form of the disease which follows the relapsing-remitting phase. Micellar Paclitaxel was given intravenously once a month.
"The Phase I results were encouraging enough in both the clinical and MRI parameters, and there were no significant adverse side effects seen in the patients, that we have already proceeded to a Phase II study. After all of the necessary clinical trials, we hope to establish whether Micellar Paclitaxel is an effective treatment for MS," said Dr. O’Connor, principal investigator of the clinical trials and an associate professor in the Division of Neurology at the University of Toronto.
The Phase II study, also sponsored by Angiotech and which started in November 1999, is a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 189 patients at seven MS clinics across Canada. The treatment phase of the trial should be completed in 2001.
"The Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada is pleased to partner with researchers and clinicians to advance knowledge about MS in basic research and disease management. Our Toronto Chapter sparked the interest in the establishment of a paediatric MS clinic, and we are delighted that this idea is now a reality," said Deanna Groetzinger, vice-president, communications.
For more information about the Micellar Paclitaxel clinical trial, please see:
www.angiotech.com,
email: clinical@angio.com,
or call Walter Korz at (604) 221-6957.
Deanna Groetzinger
Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada
(416) 967-3007
Nicole Ireland
St. Michael’s Hospital
(416) 864-5349
Cathryn Bowden
Angiotech Pharmceuticals, Inc.
(604) 221-7676
or
For more information, please contact:
Public Affairs
The Hospital for Sick Children
555 University Avenue
Suite 1742, Public Affairs, First floor Atrium
Toronto,
ON
M5G 1X8
Canada
Phone: 416-813-5058
Fax: 416-813-5328