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Wednesday, 8 April 2015

New study of Dalfampridine/Ampyra for use with HSP

There has just been a new study published which shows that Dalfampridine/Ampyra/Fampridine has use as a treatment for HSP.

The abstract is:
Dalfampridine in hereditary spastic paraplegia: a prospective, open study.
Béreau M, Anheim M, Chanson JB, Tio G, Echaniz-Laguna A, Depienne C, Collongues N, de Sèze J of the Département de Neurologie, CHRU de Besançon, Besançon, France.

Our aim was to support the use of dalfampridine as a treatment for patients affected with hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP). We performed a prospective, uncontrolled, proof of concept, open trial. We included 12 HSP patients defining the total group (TG) who received dalfampridine 10 mg twice daily for 2 weeks. Efficacy assessment was based on walking ability improvement. The Timed-25-Foot Walk Test, the Spastic Paraplegia Rating Scale (SPRS), and the 12-item Multiple Sclerosis Walking Scale (MSWS-12) were performed before and after treatment. Safety assessment was based on adverse events occurrence. A significant improvement in SPRS (p = 0.0195) and MSWS-12 (p = 0.0429) was noted after treatment in the TG. No serious adverse events were noted. This interventional study provides encouraging results supporting the use of dalfampridine in HSP.

This is an electronic publication ahead of the March edition of the Journal of Neurology.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25808501
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-015-7707-6

This paper is reported here:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AAN/45552
which reports:


  • 12 patients with HSP were given the drug -- at 10 milligrams twice a day -- for 15 days.
  • 50% of patients (6) improved on 3 measures of walking ability
  • The improvements were clinically meaningful as well as statistically significant
  • The drug was well tolerated and would likely be without significant adverse effects for an even longer treatment period.
  • There is almost no carry-over effect: "If you stop the drug, one day later there is no effect."
  • The drug is currently approved for use in multiple sclerosis

  • Within my HSP survey I had one respondent who was taking this drug for HSP, who indicated that this was being taken to improve gait, and rated this medicine as 5 out of 5 for benefits and would recommend to others.

     

    3 comments:

    1. 4-aminopyridine is the same chemical for much cheaper.

      It is, however not slow release.

      www.mod4all.com has 4-aminopyridine and the newer, much more effective 4-aminopyridine-3-methanol

      I have HSP and 4-ap greatly reduces my spasticity.

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      Replies
      1. I'm not sure where you live but I live in the US and my neurologist wrote a prescription for Ampyra and my insurance company would not pay for it because it doesn't specifically say it helps people with HSP. The cost was about $2,000 for 60 pills which I could never afford. Someone mentioned going to a compounding pharmacy and I'm trying to find that now. I didn't know if the Ampyra or the 4-aminopyridine would be better if the compounding pharmacy would even fill the prescription.

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    2. I forgot all about this blog (and my comment), just stumbled actoss it on a random search.

      Means I have been taking 4-AP daily for my spasticity for five years. And 4-AP-3-MeOH. Though 4-AP-3-MeOH is more expensive.

      It is well worth looking at similar diseases, like Multiple Sclerosis. Plenty of commonly prescribed medicines there that also help people with our disease.

      Modfinil, 4-AP, Ampyra, etc.

      Still get my 4-AP from mod4all, though now at https://mod4alll.com I'll post up some relevant links in a short while, need to read through the blog first.

      ReplyDelete