TRANSCRIPT:

JOHN GEVER: I'm John Gever with MedPage Today, and we're doing part of a four-part video series on multiple sclerosis and clinical management. I'm here with Dr. Robert Zivadinov of the University of Buffalo and the Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center in the Department of Neurology at the university.

And we're going to talk about chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency in the context of MS, although I understand that it's not exclusively an MS issue, but certainly in the MS community this has been all the talk for 2 to 3 years. And I'm wondering if you could just start out by explaining briefly, what's the origin of the so-called CCSVI hypothesis in MS.

ROBERT ZIVADINOV, M.D.: So, chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, or CCSVI as you mentioned, was put forward a couple of years ago by Professor Zamboni, a vascular surgeon from Ferrara, Italy. According to his first findings, in patients with multiple sclerosis, but not in healthy subjects, there are alterations of the main venous drainage pathways from the brain parenchyma to the periphery, mostly related to the changes in jugular veins that are draining our brain when we are in the supine position and of the vertebral system represented mostly by the changes in the azygos veins that are draining our brain when we are in the upright position.

More:  http://www.medpagetoday.com/clinical-context/MultipleSclerosis/31979