A new health care initiative is being launched to improve the method of predicting outcomes for patients with multiple sclerosis.
Professor Siddharthan Chandran and his team at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at Edinburgh University, UK, will investigate a range of clinical, laboratory, and genomic factors that influence the risk of disease relapses.
Treatment of relapses is currently "reactive rather than proactive", explains the team.
Their FutureMS study aims to improve this situation, allowing doctors to prescribe the correct medication at the necessary time.
All patients with recently diagnosed, relapsing-onset multiple sclerosis in Scotland can take part in the study, which will also have bases in Aberdeen, Dundee, and Glasgow. A total of about 500 patients are needed.
Professor Chandran said: "Multiple sclerosis is an unpredictable disease. Consequently the newly diagnosed are faced with uncertainty about what course their multiple sclerosis might take.
"This matters as knowing the likely trajectory of their multiple sclerosis will empower the individual to make more informed choices about potential treatment options as well as planning for their own life. Removing this uncertainty is the goal of FutureMS."
Funding is being provided by the Stratified Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre, which focuses on the "strata" of responses and genetics of chronic diseases, in order to create more personalised and effective treatments.
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