REPORT FROM THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY (AAN) ANNUAL MEETING, PHILADELPHIA PA, APRIL 26-MAY 3, 2014 – Postdural puncture headache was first described over a century ago by Dr. August Bier, who pioneered spinal anesthesia (Bier A. Dt Zeitschr Chirung 1899;51:361-369). In Bier’s case, the procedure went terribly awry and his headache required bed rest for nine days. Read More
Neurology
MS therapies: updated safety results
April 30, 2014REPORT FROM THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY (AAN) ANNUAL MEETING, PHILADELPHIA PA, APRIL 26-MAY 3, 2014 – The following is a summary of key safety results presented at AAN for current MS therapies. Read More
Clinical trials in Alzheimer’s disease: three recent setbacks
April 23, 2014Recent clinical trials in Alzheimer’s disease have faced numerous setbacks, not least in the failure of three recent clinical development programs of novel therapies. Read More
Alemtuzumab receives Health Canada approval
April 23, 2014Alemtuzumab, a monoclonal antibody that targets CD52 on T and B lymphocytes, has received approval in Canada for the treatment of adults aged 18-64 years with relapsing-remitting MS who have had an inadequate response to interferon-beta or other disease-modifying
therapies.
The drug is administered by IV infusion at a dose of 12 mg/day x 5 days, followed one year later by 12 mg/day x 3 days. The recommended duration of the infusion is approximately 4 hours. Read More
Fingolimod: impact on beta-amyloid neurotoxicity?
March 19, 2014A new study in mouse cortical neurons suggests that fingolimod, a sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) receptor modulator currently used to treat MS, may reduce beta-amyloid neurotoxicity (Doi et al. PLoS One 2013;8:e6; free full text at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3625222/pdf/pone.0061988.pdf).