Posted by Ueli (212.28.158.130) on April 22, 2000 at 11:15:43:
A friend from the German Cluster MB posted a notice about a newspaper article on research that might hold promises for a cure of CH. He sent me a scan of the article, and I try to give you a translation of the salient part of it. (You can read the whole article - in German - by clicking here).
The first part is a description of CH in general and the tribulations a clusterhead goes through in daily life and in search of an understanding doctor, you know this all.
The important part is about the research of Prof. Hartmut Göbel (medical chief of the pain clinic) and Dr. Norbert Czech (clinic of nuclear medicine), both University of Kiel (Germany):
Assuming CH is caused by an inflammation (albeit one without germs, and therefore not visible in blood tests) around the venous vessels behind the eye, they developed a diagnostic tool to show this. They inject the patient with a marker substance that - within several hours - is adsorbed to the inflamed veins. With a newly developed camera (called a SPECT apparatus) they can then show the inflamed region. (There are no details given, but one of the researchers coming from the nuclear department, I assume it's something along the line of PET scans). "We now know, it is a quite normal organic disease that can be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs", the researchers say. They report on a 15 year veteran of misdiagnosis, who became pain free after a few days of treatment, and the new imaging technique showed the disappearing of the inflammation.
I'll keep you posted if I find new info about this research.
PFNAD's
Ueli