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To appreciate these changes we need only to look back.
MS was first described in 1838, but it was 30 years before doctors recognized it as a specific disease. - In 1900, the life expectancy of a person with MS was just five years.
- At the start of World War II, 100 years after MS was first described, the standard therapy was blood thinners because of the mistaken belief that MS was a problem with circulation.
- The first demonstration of immune system changes in laboratory studies of MS took place in 1935, but it was not until after World War II that an immunologic cause of MS was seriously investigated.
- It was not until 1970 that the first positive results of treatment with an immunologic therapy (steroids) were published.
- In the 1990s, the disease-modifying drugs became the first line of medications that fight MS directly.
Since then, our understanding of MS has grown quickly. Indeed, more has been accomplished to fight MS in the last decade than in the preceding century. The new century will see our victory.
Reference
Written by Loren A. Rolak, MD. Reproduced by permission from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, USA. © NMSS, 2003
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