Multiple sclerosis

The preparation of a T-cell vaccine takes 10-to-14 days. The inductive course of the treatment consists of 4 weekly subcutaneous immunizations. For consolidating a vaccine effect, immunizations are further fulfilled monthly. The treatment is conducted on an outpatient basis.

The immune-mediated inactivation of self-reactive T lymphocytes results in the inhibition of disease development.

A T-cell vaccine is prepared from patient’s lymphocytes under conditions excluding its contamination with infectious agents.

No complications are described.

Autovaccination for multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is a disease due to an autoimmune process destructing brain tissues. A causal role for this process belongs to the proinflammatory T lymphocytes that are self-reactive to brain-associated antigens. The standard treatment of multiple sclerosis patients is based on applying medicines (hormones, interferons and others) with nonspecific (nonselective) immunosuppressive action. Such treatment fails to interrupt entirely the immunopatological events underlying the disease and is frequently associated with serious side effects. The autovaccination-based technology, that has been developed in CICT, is aimed to stimulate patient’s immune reactions directed selectively against the pathogenic, self-reactive Т lymphocytes responsible for disease development for more information.

A total of 28 autovaccine-treated patients was followed-up as long as 2 years or longer. The results are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Outcomes of autovaccination-based therapy

Multiple sclerosis	A number of vaccine-treated patients	No disease progression	Disease progression
Remittent	3	3 (100%)	0 (0%)
Progressive-remitting	4	3 (75%)	1 (25%)
Primary progressive chronic	4	3 (75%)	1 (25%)
Secondary progressive chronic	17	10 (59%)	7 (41%)

Throughout the follow-up time none of 3 vaccined patients with remittent multiple sclerosis exhibited no disease exacerbations. A noticeable neurological improvement was noted in 1 patient. Both the lack of disease exacerbations and clinical stabilization were observed in 2 of 4 patients with progressive-remitting multiple sclerosis. Appreciable neurological improvements were noted in 1 case. One patient from this subgroup demonstrated change for the worse in the form of growing general asthenia. Clinical stabilization was noted 3 out of 4 vaccinated patients with primary progressive chronic disease. Worsening of the disease and increase in EDSS were registered in 1 patient from this subgroup. In the subgroup of the patients with secondary progressive chronic disease 10 out of 17 persons exhibited stabilization (9 cases) or improvement (1 case) in their neurological parameters. Disease progression was noted in 7 patients from this subgroup. No complications was noted. Thus results suggest that T-cell vaccination may be safe and effective treatment for multiple sclerosis.

For more information see the publications.