A combination of steroids and multiple sclerosis (MS) drugs can help a MS patient recover in a better way than MS drugs alone. This finding was suggested at a recently concluded Late-breaking Science Program at the American Academy of Neurology’s 61st Annual Meeting that was conducted in Seattle, Washington from April 25 – May 2, 2009.

Multiple Sclerosis, which is also referred to as encephalomyelitis disseminata, is an autoimmune ailment in which a patient’s immune system poses an attack to his central nervous system.

From ScienceDaily:

At the beginning of the study and again after three years, the researchers measured the size of lesions in the brain that are a sign of disease activity. For those receiving both drugs, the lesions stayed the same size or shrunk, while the size of the lesions grew for those taking only interferon.

“These results indicate that these two drugs may have a synergy when taken together and provide a more beneficial effect on the disease activity,” said study author Mads Ravnborg, MD, of the Danish Multiple Sclerosis Research Center at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark. “This is a promising finding, as the benefit from interferon is only moderate and not everyone responds fully to the treatment, so anything we can do to boost those results is positive.”

The study was supported by Biogen Idec.

The above findings clearly suggest that methylprednisolone, a steroid drug, can now be used as part of an ongoing treatment along with treating acute multiple sclerosis attacks. The study also indicated a combination of steroids and multiple sclerosis (MS) drugs have a more beneficial effect on the disease activity than MS drugs alone.

The findings have surely cleared all doubts about the usefulness of steroid drugs in fighting against Multiple Sclerosis.

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