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MS-STAT2 trial closes in on recruitment goal

Our MS-STAT2 trial is investigating whether simvastatin can slow disability progression when taken over a three-year period. They’re measuring progression using the Expanded Disability Status Scale, which assesses changes in walking and other MS symptoms.

The trial is well underway, and only needs around 100 more people with secondary progressive MS to meet its recruitment goal.

Building on encouraging results

Positive results from a smaller trial, MS-STAT, showed simvastatin could improve levels of disability and slow progression. It also reduced the rate of brain atrophy (tissue loss), suggesting the treatment could protect nerves from damage.

Professor Jeremy Chataway, from UCL's Institute of Neurology, is leading the trial. He told us: “Simvastatin is one of the most promising treatment prospects for secondary progressive MS in our lifetime.

People with this form of the condition have been waiting decades for drugs that work, which is why there’s such excitement around this trial. We believe simvastatin could change lives.”

A different future

Stuart Nixon, patient advisor and MS Society Ambassador, has been involved in the project from the start. Here’s what he had to say: “In my mind’s eye, I can still see my mum and me sitting in a consultant’s office when I was 18 and being told ‘Stuart, you’ve got MS’. I waited for the second half of the sentence - ‘and this what we’re going to do about it’. But in 1980 there was no second half.

Since then, I’ve been committed to helping create a different future. So someone who sits in that office will hear: ‘MS isn’t going to affect your life enormously. Take these tablets and that’ll stop any effects of MS.’

That’s why I got involved in shaping MS-STAT2. It’s been a fabulous project to be involved in. I’m never going to have the scientific expertise the team do, but my lived experience of MS complements their perspective.

We’re almost there with our recruitment. But we still need a few more participants to join us in finding out if simvastatin can make a difference to people with secondary progressive MS. I know some of us are thinking, I can’t sign up for a trial at the moment, I need to stay safe at home. But now the vaccine roll-out is going so well and hospitals taking extra precautions with PPE and social distancing, I really believe people can start coming back into hospitals with confidence.

MS is unpredictable and can sometimes take control. Getting involved in research gives us a chance to take that control back.”

Find out more about the people behind the trial on the MS Society website.

How will it help people with MS?

Right now, there are no treatments that can slow or stop the accumulation of disability associated with MS. If this trial is successful, simvastatin could be one of the first few treatments licensed for secondary progressive MS.

If you, or someone you know, would like to be considered to take part in the trial, you can find out more and register your interest on the UCL website.