RESEARCH - JC virus activation called common with natalizumab

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JC Virus Activation Called Common with Natalizumab

By Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today

Published: September 09, 2009

Reviewed by Dori F. Zaleznik, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of

Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston.

Among 19 consecutive patients treated with natalizumab for 18 months,

the prevalence of JC virus in urine samples increased from 19% at

baseline to 63% after one year (P=0.02), according to Yiping Chen, MD,

PhD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and

colleagues.

Writing in the Sept. 10 New England Journal of Medicine, the

researchers said the virus was absent in peripheral blood mononuclear

cells at the start of natalizumab treatment in all patients, but was

recovered from 60% of samples after 18 months (P=0.02).

No patients in the sample developed PML, a life-threatening and

debilitating neurological condition. But reports of two new cases of

PML were published by other researchers in the NEJM this week,

bringing the total to 14 in multiple sclerosis patients since

natalizumab was introduced in 2004.

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Read the full article here:

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/MultipleSclerosis/15889

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