Welcome to our very first weekly news review. Starting today, it is the intention to use the Monday column of this blog to cast a look back at the previous week’s editorial content of this MS site.

In particular, we’ll be looking at the wide range of topics covered and seeing which ones proved to be the most popular with everyone.

Two news stories, both about the use of stem cell therapy to treat MS, dominated the interests of people visiting Multiple Sclerosis News Today website last week.

Two facets of the same story, the outcome of a long term clinical trial in Canada, were presented in the two news items:

“Aggressive Stem Cell Therapy Stops MS Relapses, According to Long-term Clinical Trial” concentrated on the success of the long-term clinical trial of HSCT that followed the partipants for up to 13 years after treatment. The other, “Aggressive Stem Cell Transplant Approach Halts MS for Years, But Risks are High,” drew more attention to the risks involved in the procedure that remains confidential.

News review – one MS patient’s opinion

Others in the Top Five list of best-read stories were:

“Myelination Relies on Mechanical Stimuli Like That Used for Bone Repair, Study Finds“

This is about an interesting study that shows that stimulation of tissues can lead to myelination like pressure on broken bones can help them to repair. Now, I broke a few bones as a teenager but never has it occurred to me that pressure can help them mend. But, accepting that as a medical fact, it is exciting as a patient to find out that myelin regeneration can be stimulated in a similar way.

“‘Master Switch’ for Autoimmune Diseases Like MS Potentially Seen in DNA of Immune Cells“ 

So ‘super-enhancers’ in DNA have been found to include genetic variants that could be ‘master switches’ for autoimmune diseases. I have to admit to not being an expert in DNA. In fact, except for its use in crime detection my knowledge of the subject is next to nothing. However, it is a complex area of science and I am positive that this study is not the last we’ll hear about DNA.

“Genmab to Begin Phase 3 Trials of Ofatumumab to Treat Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis“

Latest news of the development of another drug to treat relapsing MS. I suppose this should be welcomed, if it is a genuine improvement on other disease modifying therapies (DMT). However, my feelings seem to agree with a significant body of opinion among fellow patients. We don’t want the big pharma companies coming up with yet another disease modifying therapy. There are enough already; what we want is for them to find a cure. But of course patients know there is more money to be made from DMTs than from fnding a cure.

In addition to the ones mentioned above, there were another 11 articles that made up the week’s total.