Life-saving MS treatment praised

Australian doctors say a new stem cell treatment which saved the life of a young Canberra man suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS) should be adopted more widely.

Ben Leahy, 19, was struck down with rapid onset MS that left him paralysed and fighting for his life in Canberra Hospital.

"If he wasn't in intensive care he would have died," neurologist Colin Andrews told ABC TV on Tuesday.

Dr Andrews wanted to try a treatment used overseas but never successfully carried out in Australia - bone marrow transplant.

"He was the perfect case because he had no other option," the neurologist said.

"So we had to take the risk."

Mr Leahy's parents Don and Prue Curtotti supported the plan.

Dr Curtotti - himself a GP - had read about man in Athens who'd done well following a stem cell procedure.

Haematologist Michael Pidcock says the treatment involves rebooting a patient's immune system.

"The patient's own bone marrow stem cells are harvested from their blood stream," he told ABC TV.

Chemotherapy then knocks out the patient's immune system and remaining bone marrow cells.

"The marrow cells were re-infused a day after that," Dr Pidcock said.

"Following a period of reduction of the cells in the blood, due to the chemotherapy, the normal marrow regenerated like seedlings in a garden and produced normal blood cells after about 14 days."

Dr Andrews said the change in Mr Leahy was the most dramatic he'd ever seen in someone with MS.

Former young patients now in nursing homes could have benefited from the procedure too, he said.

"There have been cases prior to this where, in retrospect now, I probably should have tried to do something."

It's estimated there's only a 20 per cent chance of Mr Leahy relapsing.

But MS Australia remains cautious about the new treatment.

"It appears to have clearly saved (Ben's) life so we are very excited about that," consultant Bill Carroll told ABC TV.

"But then again it may just be something that is peculiar to Ben."

Prof Carroll stressed that stem cell treatment was still very experimental.

It may not be "translatable" to all people with MS, he said.

"It's probably only worth considering in those cases with rapidly aggressive disease, rapidly and severely disabling disease ... and where conventional treatments have not been effective."