Can you stop my Multiple Sclerosis?.

Date:
2016
  • Videos

About this work

Description

This documentary follows four people with multiple sclerosis (MS) on their journeys to recovery with a radical new form of treatment. MS is a life-long and potentially debilitating disease. On average, 100 people a week are diagnosed with MS in the UK. Professor John Snowdon a specialist in treating blood cancers is working on a form of treatment that works to a delete and reboot framework. This treatment entails rebuilding the immune system with a bone marrow transplant from the patient’s stem cells, to return the immune system to its state prior to MS. The stem cells are extracted by being moved from bone marrow to the blood, through a short burst of chemotherapy combined with growth hormones. The documentary seeks to question the importance of this new treatment, in a climate where standard medical treatments fail for some patients. If a patient who is diagnosed at the age of 21 can be treated when the disease is caught at its earliest stages, can it be stopped in its tracks? A transplant currently costs £30,000 as a one-off treatment, which equates to the same price as just one year of standardised MS treatment. The patients, in their early days of recovery demonstrate rapid improvement up to a year after their treatment. The future is optimistic but unknown.

Publication/Creation

2016.

Physical description

1 DVD (29 min.) : sound, colour, PAL ; 12 cm.

Notes

Originally broadcast on 18 January 2016 on BBC 4.

Creator/production credits

Produced by Alison Priestly and Alys Cummings.
Narrated by Fergus Walsh.

Copyright note

BBC

Type/Technique

Languages

Where to find it

  • LocationStatusAccess
    Closed stores
    5818D

Permanent link