Optimizing therapeutics in the management of patients with multiple sclerosis: a review of drug efficacy, dosing, and mechanisms of action.

ABSTRACT: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating neurological disorder that affects nearly 2 million adults, mostly in the prime of their youth. An environmental trigger, such as a viral infection, is hypothesized to initiate the abnormal behavior of host immune cells: to attack and damage the myelin sheath surrounding the neurons of the central nervous system. While several other pathways and disease triggers are still being investigated, it is nonetheless clear that MS is a heterogeneous disease with multifactorial etiologies that works independently or synergistically to initiate the aberrant immune responses to myelin. Although there are still no definitive markers to diagnose the disease or to cure the disease per se, research on management of MS has improved many fold over the past decade.

SUBMITTER: Damal K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3854923 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature