Cancer Drug Slows Multiple Sclerosis Progression

BOSTON (Reuters) - Two infusions of the cancer drug Rituxan given two weeks apart slowed the progression of multiple sclerosis for nearly a year, researchers reported on Wednesday. And Rituxan appears to be twice as effective as first-line treatments for MS, which reduce the number of relapses by about a third, the researchers said. "It's quite remarkable that the effect was sustained for 48 weeks with just a single course of therapy," said Dr. Stephen Hauser of the University of California at San Francisco, who worked on the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.