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Gwen Higgs's avatar

At last! As a person with MS (PPMS) and a long-term proponent of HSCT who has long been frustrated by the stand taken by many neurologists, I applaud your current reasoning.

My neurologist in Oxford told me seven years ago that I would be brought back in a box in I had HSCT. My haematologist in Oxford told me seven years ago that he couldn't understand why neurologists weren't referring their MS patients to him for HSCT. He supported my decision to have HSCT, especially as at that time there was no other treatment offered to me, and my condition was deteriorating. So I was the third British MS patient to travel to Russia for HSCT. Hundreds followed in my footsteps. I am currently seven years free from progression, and will be forever grateful that I was able to have HSCT, despite the cost.

I'm afraid that I must disagree that "all comers" are accepted for HSCT abroad because I can tell you that every single patient goes through extensive testing to ensure their fitness to undergo HSCT. Not everyone is accepted. I'm very happy that I was.

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Pedro da Costa Pinto's avatar

I can't thank you enough for the extraordinary work you conduct !!!

Having MS for 21 years and knowing lots of pwMS I can only agree with your perspective towards MS thérapies, we must go hard and as soon as possible to have an early stop in disease progression!

Even without access to AHSCT or HSCT if treatments like Alemtuzumab or Cladribine could be administered as 1st line therapy there would be two big advantages:

1st - stopping progression when there's very few irreversible lesions

2nd - pwMS receiving these IRTs at younger age would have more "strength" ( physically, psychologically, and others) to better mitigate possible side effects.

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