Thursday, March 17, 2011

New CCSVI Detection Technique from Dr Zamboni

Wow, Dr Zamboni just keeps pushing forward with ways to help the MS community. One of the issues with CCSVI detection to the point has been the detection of a blockage by neurologists. So, you have many MS patients being misdiagnosed because of a flawed detection process. Now, Dr Zamboni has figured out a way to take the user error out of the equation. He has come up with a process that records blood flow through a plethysmography machine to see if you have blockage. This method eliminates the operator's special training dependency, and makes detection so much quicker and easier.

Here are the details I have right now. The patient wears a collar that measures the volume of fluids in the neck. At first, the patient sits upright in a chair. When the volume stabilizes, the chair is aggessively tilted and the patient is in the supine position. The volume is continuously measured, and this position increases the volume in the neck. Again, the patient is agressively tilted back into an upright position and whamo, an MS patients blood flow takes a long time to decrease again. A normal subjects blood flow decreases almost instantly.

This is so much simpler and more accurate to see if a patient has CCSVI present or not. After they get a positive that the patient has blockage, then they can use doppler and see what extent the blood flow is impeded. This is going to be so much simpler and more effective in diagnosing since it will remove the user error. This is literally a push button method of testing, which should in turn make the whole diagnostic process easier and more reliable. Thank you Dr Zamboni for continuing to find new and creative ways to help MS sufferers. I am so grateful for men like Dr Zamboni and Dr Swank for not giving up when the medical community pushed back on them and tried to disprove their theories. I will keep my eyes open for a diagnostic center that begins to use this technique, and have my wife and daughter tested.

1 comment:

Cece said...

I am not sure when plethysmography will be used clinically to diagnose CCSVI. Doppler ultrasound and MRV are the two current methods being used. Dr. Zamboni recently presented at ISET in January 2012 about plethysmography. I am very encouraged that it will be the best method for diagnosing CCSVI noninvasively.

When people get tested, it might be that the stenoses are so bad that it's pretty obvious something should be done about it. My jugulars were 80% and 99% occluded, respectively. That looked bad on MRV, it looked bad on doppler, it looked bad on IVUS, and I'm sure it would've looked bad on plethysmography too. :)

Best wishes to you and your wife, with your MS (and possibly CCSVI) journey!