EPSMS Study Help

Online registration forms are now available for the EPSMS Clinical Trial. If you wish to participate in our EPSMS Study, first register a secure user account. Then you will be able to complete an eligibility screen and sign an informed consent after discussing it with a clinician. If you intend to have your PET scan done in La Jolla at UCSD in Southern California, please download and read the UCSD informed consent. If you prefer to have your PET scan done at another imaging center, such as the Northern California PET Imaging Center (NCPIC) in Sacramento, please download and read the BHA informed consent. A detailed list of inclusion and exclusion criteria for the EPSMS Study can be found in the published report Research Protocol for Exploratory Study of Entire-body PET , revised as the Amended Protocol for Exploratory Study of Entire-body PET , available to the public at our Brainiacs Journal. If you have any questions, please inquire via the contact form.

EPSMS Participants: Inclusion Criteria

• Adult men and women between the ages of 25 and 55 inclusive will be selected for both MS patients and normal healthy subjects.
• MS patients must be diagnosed by credentialed neurologist according to the revised McDonald criteria (Thompson et al. 2018).
• Participants must be able to designate a study partner (family member, relative, or friend) to assist and accompany them to the PET scan and suppport them throughout their participation in the clinical trial.
• Both the participant and study partner should reside sufficiently close to the designated imaging center for their PET scan, or otherwise must be comfortably willing and able to tolerate travel to the imaging site for the PET scan.
• Willing and able to lie motionless in a supine position on the PET scanner bed for 5 to 30 minutes (depending on axial length of the PET scanner and the number of scanner bed positions to image from top of head to bottom of pelvis).
• Willing and able to give informed consent, personal contact information (phone number, email and postal address), healthcare insurance information, prior medical records, and contact information for their primary care or specialty care physician.

EPSMS Participants: Exclusion Criteria

• MS patients with any additional complicating medical illness other than MS such as major gastro-intestinal, pulmonary or cardiovascular disease, and any other neuropsychiatric illness unrelated to MS diagnosed prior to the onset of initial symptoms of MS.
• Participants who are unwilling or unable to identify a study partner to assist and accompany them.
• No health insurance or no direct care provider, who should be either a primary care physician or a specialty care physician.
• Body weight more than 200 kilograms (440 pounds). Claustrophobia. Inability to lie in PET scanner.
• Creatinine levels > 1.5 mg/dL or estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) < 60 ml /minute. Recent (< 90 days) CT scan with contrast.
• Any known concomitant acute infection including upper respiratory infections, genitourinary infections, etc.
• History of metastatic or newly (last 5 years) diagnosed locally invasive cancer. Chemotherapy in the last 5 years. Radiation therapy in the last 3 years. Major surgery within the last 6 months.
• Pregnancy or breast-feeding.
• Diabetes or other metabolic-endocrine disorders.
• Inmates from jails or prisons or other involuntary patients committed to psychiatric hospitals.