Intrathecal Steroid may help Spasticity

Kamin F, Rommer PS, Abu-Mugheisib M, Koehler W, Hoffmann F, Winkelmann A, Benecke R, Zettl UK.Effects of intrathecal triamincinolone-acetonide treatment in MS patients with therapy-resistant spasticity. Spinal Cord. 2014 . doi: 10.1038/sc.2014.155

Objectives:Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease affecting young people and is a major cause of disability. In the course of time, disability progresses and symptoms like spasticity may occur. Spasticity is a major cost factor in MS patients. Various agents are approved for the treatment of spasticity, but each of those agents may have several side effects. Intrathecally administered steroids (triamcinolone-acetonide (TCA)) may be efficient in treating spasticity in patients with lesions in the spinal cord and no response to first-line therapeutics. The aim of this study is to show effects of TCA treatment on clinical parameters in patients with MS.

Methods:This multicentre open label study included 54 patients with MS. The clinical outcome parameters were spasticity, disability, maximum walking distance, bladder function and quality of life. All patients received physiotherapy in addition to TCA treatment to obtain optimal effects on clinical parameters.
Results:Spasticity, maximum walking distance as well as disability improved significantly (P⩽0.001) during TCA applications. Bladder function improved in every seventh patient.
Conclusion:We observed the effects of intrathecally administered TCA on different clinical parameters including bladder function. TCA administration is a safe method to treat different symptoms in MS patients. Besides TCA treatment, physiotherapy contributes to the improvement of clinical parameters


Triamcinolone-acetonide is a corticosteroid tht is morepotent than prednisone. This was delivered into the spine and in this study there may have been some beneficial effect. But if you had physiotherapy it improved things also. This may be promising but will need controlled studies to formally show this.

CoI. TeamG are developing competing technologies

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