Response from Dr. Paolo Zamboni regarding his Brave Dreams study:

“The take away message from Dr. Zamboni about the results of the latest data from Brave Dreams trial
"The study was unfortunately under powered which means that you do not have a sample wide enough to reach the so called statistical significance.
In addition, PTA (AKA- venoplasty) is safe but also inefficient as a vascular technique because it only restored blood flow in half of the patients. The BAD news~ PTA seems unable to revert the disability previously accumulated since both EDSS and other more precise assessment were stable in both the PTA and the Sham arm. The mean number of MRI lesions were also not different. The GOOD news ~ the probability to be free from Gad+ lesions at MRI is 3 folds increased in PTA at 12 months. 55% without lesion in Sham arm versus almost 80% in PTA. The PTA effect on the MRI bio marker is not immediate. It requires about 6 months from PTA. At 6-12 months the mean number of MRI lesion is strongly reduced in PTA. CCSVI is now true 74% prevalence in MS, confirmed in 93% of cases by angiogram. The effect on MRI precedes further disability accumulation. This positive effect is not statistically excluded by Brave Dreams this is stated in the discussion of the article.”

Please share - thank you! Thanks to Michelle for passing along Dr. Zamboni’s comments.