Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency (CCSVI) is a condition discovered by Dr Paolo Zamboni from the University of Ferrera in Italy. It refers to a reduction of flow of blood from the brain to the heart due to the narrowing of various veins along the spinal chord from the head down to the upper chest.
It is believed that this condition is what causes build-ups of iron to form in the brain. Eventually, these would then cause the development of the lesions and MS symptoms.
How is it diagnosed?
Although perhaps not the only possible method for detecting the condition Dr Zamboni and his team used combined technique of high resolution echo-colour-Doppler (ECD) and transcranial colour coded Doppler sonography (TCCS). Combined they are referred to as an ECD-TCCS
Which according to his paper this test is non-invasive, repeatable and cost effective. Most importantly it is effective for investigating the outflow of blood from the brain.
Unfortunately, right now there isn’t a standard method of performing this test. Because of this information being highly specialized there are only a few locations that are capable of performing it.
An outline of what Dr Zamboni and his team performed is available in his research paper: Doppler haemodynamics of cerebral venous return. However, the full text off this paper is currently only viewable by the research and medical community.
How is it treated?
Precise details are not known (at least by the author), however currently the only treatment that has been developed for treating CCSVI is involves first identify the veins that are blocked using a procedure such as the ECD-TCCS stated previously.
After this an appropriately qualified surgeon would be required to operate on the affected veins. The technique employed by Dr Zamboni’s team was to insert what he called a balloon into the vein and expand it effectively stretching the vein. For most of his patients the expansion was permanent and once the blockage/restriction was removed their MS symptoms began to dissipate.
It is hoped by many in the MS community that this is the miracle they’ve been hoping for.
