#EAN2017 & #ClinicSpeak: immune reconstitution therapies

Should access to healthcare, for example HSCT, be equitable? #EAN2017 #ClinicSpeak

As promised the following is my presentation from the Excemed MS Symposium held on Sunday night at the EAN in Amsterdam. I had feedback from several people about how appealing selective immune system depletion followed by reconstitution is as a a treatment strategy for MS. However, the efficacy of all of our licensed DMTs remain a long way off that of what is being reported with HSCT. 

Giovanni Mancardi gave a wonderful meta-analysis in the session on the result of AHSCT and how the safety profile has improved. The most recent mortality is less than 0.3%, i.e. less than 3 in a 1,000 treated patients. I am therefore not surprised that a lot of pwMS who are not concerned about the risks associated AHSCT are frustrated about the lack of access to it as a treatment option. I really hope the NIHR will fund a AHSCT trial in the UK. We need randomised controlled data for AHSCT to become routine; otherwise it will remain a lottery with some pwMS being able to access AHSCT whilst others not being able to access AHSCT. The latter brings up the ethical dilemma about whether of not access to healthcare should be equitable. 


CoI: multiple

Labels: , , , , , ,