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hi all; if we keep getting news like this our biggest worry in ten years=20 might be how to cope=20 without=20 pd! janet -------------------------------------------------------------------------= -- Doctors may have medical answer to Gehrig's disease -------------------------------------------------------------------------= -- Copyright =A9 1997 Nando.net Copyright =A9 1997 Reuter Information Service MIAMI (Jan 14, 1997 5:36 p.m. EST) - Doctors said Tuesday that by injecti= ng a new high-tech drug directly into the brain, they may have solved the degenerative nerve condition amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig= 's disease, a medical msytery for decades. "We're very excited about what is happening here, but it is very early stages. This is still very experimental," said Dr. Walter Bradley, chairm= an of the University of Miami's Department of Neurology, who is lead investigator of the first clinical trial of the delivery system and the drug. Doctors at six medical centres have just begun a Phase I clinical trial i= n which they will implant a device into 24 patients that will allow them to inject GDNF, or Glial Cell-Derived Neurotrophic factor, a new drug developed by Amgen, directly into their brains. The drug had been shown to promote the growth of nerve cells in animals. Now doctors are testing the drug on humans for the first time, but they also hope using the "port" developed by Medtronic Inc to inject it direct= ly to where cells are growing will prove more effective than earlier trials = in which other drugs were injected under the skin. In those trials, Bradley said, medicines might have proved ineffective because they were stopped by the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from many substances that enter the bloodstream. Last week, Amgen and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc announced that subcutaneous delivery of another highly touted drug, Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), had not proven effective. "It didn't work, and probably the reason that it didn't work is that the drugs didn't reach the brain," Bradley said. ALS patients suffer a slow death, during which they become progressively weaker as their nerve cells die. The disease is best known as the killer = of the baseball star Lou Gehrig. Ken Sibley, the first patient in the trial announced on Tuesday, was diagnosed with ALS last March and told he had no more than three years to live. Bradley said there is just one drug available to ALS patients which slows the progress of the disease. He said the hope for the current trial was that GDNF would make the cells die more slowly or even stop them from dying. "GDNF looks to be in the laboratory, at any rate, probably the most encouraging drug, in terms of the effect upon motor nerve cells," Bradley said. Sibley, 39, from Birmingham, Ala., had lost his ability to speak by Tuesday. A year ago, the real estate executive was on a ski vacation with his family, shortly before a neurosurgeon friend noticed his slurred spee= ch and suggested medical care. Sibley was diagnosed with ALS last March. Shortly afterward, he contacted Bradley, a leading ALS researcher, and was placed his waiting list for clinical trials of new drugs. Although there was a chance he would not receive the drug during the firs= t nine months of the trial -- two-thirds will receive GDNF and one-third a placebo -- Sibley said he jumped at the chance for treatment, for which a slim plastic tube was installed in his brain last month. "This is his hope. He feels like he owes it to his family to try, to live... and to fight," said Rebecca Sibley for her husband, who communicated with her by typing into a computer. The first part of the trial will last for nine months. Bradley said it could take up to another to two years to determine whether the drug and probe combination is effective. He said that, if successful, the trial could lead to treatment for diseas= es such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. "This combination could be the mechanism of the future," Bradley said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------= -- [log in to unmask] --