A Mayo Clinic study demonstrates that only those multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with evidence for antibody deposition or complement activation -- immune cells that can cause tissue destruction -- in their lesions are likely to respond to plasma exchange, a treatment for acute MS attacks....This is the first evidence that differences in pathological subtypes of MS may predict response to treatment. The findings will be published in the Aug. 13 issue of The Lancet..."The new findings may partly explain why some patients respond to a particular treatment and others do not," says Claudia Lucchinetti, MD, Mayo Clinic neurologist and the paper's senior and corresponding author. "Thus, MS treatments may need to be more individualized and tailored for different types of patients." MORE