Some cures
that weren’t
by Allen C. Bowling, MD, PhD
Clear thinking is always hard- est when current therapies
aren’t bringing the hoped-for
results. Both doctors and their
patients have to sort out options
knowing that therapies are
sometimes used extensively and
promoted as safe and effective
before their risks or benefits are
fully understood. This occurs
with both conventional treatments and “unconventional”
or CAM therapies. It’s common for individuals to say, let
me take the risk anyway. But
MS may lead people to expose
themselves to side effects or to
spend money, time and effort on
therapies that ultimately were
not worth pursuing.
This is not a new problem in
MS. Exploring three older “cures
that weren’t” might be helpful
for people who are on this difficult path today.
Hyperbaric oxygen
Hyperbaric oxygen treatment,
also known as HBO, involves
having a person breathe oxygen while sitting in a specially
designed, high-pressure chamber. There is FDA approval
of this therapy for a limited
number of medical conditions
such as decompression sickness
(“the bends” that affects deep-sea divers) and severe burns and
A look back at three therapies that once seemed to promise important benefits in MS.
infections. With little or no
supportive evidence, HBO has
also been claimed to be effective
for a wide array of other medical
conditions, including MS.
In the late 1970s and early
1980s, studies in the animal
model of MS and limited studies in people with MS indicated
that HBO might be an effective
MS therapy. The most notable
of these was a small clinical trial
reported in 1983 in the New
England Journal of Medicine.
This study showed improvement with HBO in 12 out of 17
people with MS.
But these positive results were
never repeated. Instead, many
additional trials of HBO in
people with MS produced disap-
pointing results. No consistent
therapeutic effects were seen.
Ultimately, three independent
reviews of HBO and MS studies
concluded that HBO therapy
does not produce consistent
beneficial effects and should not
be used to treat MS. In fact, the
reviews concluded that HBO
did not merit more investigation
in MS.
