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Autologous Bone Marrow Transplantation for the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis

  • Demyelinating Disorders (DN Bourdette and V Yadav, Section Editors)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system and represents one of the leading causes of neurologic disability in young adults. Current treatments for MS have shown limited efficacy in patients with either a progressive or an aggressive disease course. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) has been proposed to control or even cure refractory cases of MS. Indeed, HSCT is able to temporarily eradicate the autoreactive cells and to reset the aberrant immune response to self-antigens. In the last decade, owing to the growing experience in selecting the most appropriate patients to transplant and the recent advances in chemotherapeutic and support regimens, the transplant-related mortality of autologous HSCT in MS patients dropped down to 1,3 % and the progression-free survival ranges from 47 % to 100 %. Altogether, these data support autologous HSCT as a possible second-line therapy for refractory MS.

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Conflict of Interest

Marta Radaelli, Arianna Merlini, Raffaella Greco, Francesca Sangalli, Fabio Ciceri, and Gianvito Martino declare that they have no conflict of interest. Giancarlo Comi has received financial support from Biogen, Novartis, Teva Pharmaceutical Ltd., Sanofi, Genzyme, Merck Serono, Bayer, and Actelion.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Vita Salute San Raffaele University, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy

    Marta Radaelli, Arianna Merlini, Francesca Sangalli & Giancarlo Comi

  2. Neuroimmunology Unit, Institute of Experimental Neurology (INSpe) , Division of Neuroscience, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Via Olgettina 58, 20132, Milan, Italy

    Arianna Merlini & Gianvito Martino

  3. Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation Unit, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy

    Raffaella Greco & Fabio Ciceri

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  1. Marta Radaelli
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  2. Arianna Merlini
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  3. Raffaella Greco
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  4. Francesca Sangalli
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  5. Giancarlo Comi
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Correspondence to Gianvito Martino.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Demyelinating Disorders

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Radaelli, M., Merlini, A., Greco, R. et al. Autologous Bone Marrow Transplantation for the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 14, 478 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-014-0478-0

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