An inexpensive drug normally used to lower cholesterol can also be used to treat the most common form of multiple sclerosis, a U.S. study has found.
Treatment with simvastatin (the drug's generic name) nearly halved the number of inflammatory lesions in the brains of sufferers of multiple sclerosis (MS), Dr Timothy Vollmer told the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Hawaii earlier today.
Dr Vollmer, chief of neuro-immunology at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona, told ABC Science Online that his experimental treatment of MS patients for six months appeared to be safe and promising.
Simvastatin, derived synthetically from a fungus, is part of class of drugs called statins. They act to lower cholesterol by inhibiting an enzyme that enables the body to make all the cholesterol it needs. Vollmer tested previous studies that suggested simvastatin, by coincidence, may also reduce inflammation of the central nervous system.
While there is no direct link between simvastatin's cholesterol-lowering and anti-inflammatory actions, Vollmer is researching its ability to control several proteins that regulate the immune system. "Preliminary data suggest that daily treatment with 80 milligrams of simvastatin may be safe and effective for the treatment of relapsing or remitting MS," he said.
Vollmer conducted an 'open-label, single-arm' study involving a total of 45 sufferers, funded by an unrestricted educational grant from a manufacturer of simvastatin, Merck Sharp & Dohme, whose trade name for the drug is Zocor.
"This type of study means that both patients and physicians knew what therapy they were on," he said. "All patients went through a baseline phase for two months, where they had three magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans. All patients then took simvastatin for six months, and had three more MRIs.
"The 'blinding' in the study comes from the fact that our primary measure of the effectiveness of the drug was by MRI. The MRIs were analysed by physicians that did not know the treatment status of the patients," he said.
The before and after MRI images showed a significant decrease in the number and size of the active MS lesions damaging the central nervous systems of sufferers. Vollmer estimates it may take up to three years to complete the next stage of his research with a randomised study of a larger group of people.
"It appears simvastatin has the same side-effects seen in non-MS patients, namely potential muscle or liver problems," he said. "However, in our study, there were no significant side-effects that caused patients to lower the dose or stop the simvastatin."
"In my opinion, the most promising role of statins in MS may be as add-on therapies that can be used in conjunction with currently approved therapies to enhance their effectiveness," he added.
