A new study found that B cells, a type of antibody, can help reduce the appearance of new brain lesions in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.
For the study, researchers led by the head of the Biopharm Clinical Pharmacology & Biometrics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Uxbridge Daren Austin recruited 231 participants who had been previously diagnosed with recurring MS. They divided them into two groups: the first group was given a placebo, while the second group was given low dosages of an anti-B cell treatment called ofatumumab.
All participants were given placebo treatment for the first 12 weeks of the study, followed by low dosages of ofatumumab during the second phase of the study. Each participant was subjected to brain scans every four weeks, to monitor the potential emergence of new brain lesions. The study period lasted for 24 weeks.
The brain scans were compared to the subjects' previous records prior to the study. The research team observed that B-cell therapy caused a reduction on the disease activity. This improvement was measured with an average of 64 cells per microliter.
Furthermore, analysts noted that the average brain lesion count dropped to less than one, compared to 16 lesions without the therapy. This shift was only observed within patients who continued the ofatumumab treatment after the study ended.
The U.S Food and Drug Administration recently approved GSK's Arzerra (ofatumumab) as a combination treatment for previously untreated patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) who failed to show improvement after fludarabine-based therapy. However, it has not yet approved for MS patients.
"These results need to be validated, of course, but the findings are interesting," Austin said to MedicalXpress. "They provide new insight into the mechanism of B cells in MS and present a possible new target threshold for exploring the potential benefit of anti-B cell therapy."
Results of this study were released on April 24 and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 26 to May 3, 2014.
