Charcot 3: does an anti-viral inhibit MS?

Does an anti-viral inhibit MS? Charcot 1 is still not published (nudge, nudge) but it didn't work but that didn't surprise me as the treatment agent prevented virus integrating into the DNA, which was targeting a virus that had already integrated.

However there was anecdote of disease remission after taking the drug. It has happened again:

Drosu NC, Edelman ER, Housman DE. Could antiretrovirals be treating EBV in MS? A case report. Mult Scler Relat Disord. 2018 Feb 27;22:19-21.

We present the case of an HIV-negative patient clinically diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS who achieved significant disease improvement on Combivir (zidovudine/lamivudine). Within months of treatment, the patient reported complete resolution of previously unremitting fatigue and paresthesiae, with simultaneous improvements in lesion burden detected by MRI. All improvements have been sustained for more than three years. This response may be related to the action of zidovudine as a known inhibitor of EBV lytic DNA replication, suggesting future directions for clinical investigation.


Zidovudine (ZDV), also known as azidothymidine (AZT) It works by inhibiting the enzyme reverse transcriptase that HIV uses to make DNA and therefore decreases replication of the virus. Lamivudine is a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor and works by blocking the HIV reverse transcriptase and hepatitis B virus polymerase.



The person took the drug and got better, is this due to drug or because of "regression to the mean" and they got better because they were going to get better anyway? There is one way to find out and that is to try it again. I hope they have stumbled on to a winner.

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