OVER-THE-COUNTER antihistamine clemastine fumarate was shown to be safe and effective for treating chronic demyelinating injury in multiple sclerosis (MS) even in patients who have had symptoms of myelin degeneration for years, according to full data from the ReBUILD trial published in The Lancet.
Not one of the 50 patients studied dropped out of the trial.
"Our findings suggest that myelin repair can be achieved even following prolonged damage," wrote author Ari J Green, chief of the Division of Neuroinflammation and Glial Biology and Professor at University of California, San Francisco.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first approved the drug, which crosses the blood-brain barrier, in 1977 for treating allergies, and generic forms of the drug have subsequently become widely available.
Visit thelancet.com to access the study abstract.
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