The Allegheny General Hospital Multiple Sclerosis Treatment Center was established in 1992 and provides care for approximately 2,000 Multiple Sclerosis patients each year, making it one of the largest MS programs in the United States.

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurological immune disorder that affects the central nervous system – the brain and spinal cord.  People with MS may often develop progressive worsening neurological disability.  After 20 years of affliction, 25 percent of people with multiple sclerosis require the use of a wheelchair, and 70 percent eventually develop moderate functional disability.

Thomas Scott, M.D. is the medical director of the MS Treatment Center and is a well-known and widely published expert in Multiple Sclerosis.  Dr. Scott was involved in early clinical trials of beta interferon and glatiramer acetate, therapies that reduce the rate of disability and progression of relapsing/remitting MS.

Two full-time nurses and ancillary staff collaborate with physical therapists and patient educators from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society to provide the highest possible standard of care.  This treatment team is devoted to improving the quality of life for MS patients and to teaching MS care to physicians and medical students.

The AGH MS Treatment Center has been involved in several multi-center treatment trials and has helped to study new medications that are now the standard of medical care for MS.  Ongoing treatment trials are focusing on medications that are more effective and more easily tolerated.  Patients have the opportunity to receive new investigational treatments when indicated.

One ongoing research project involves “newly diagnosed” MS patients – those followed since the onset of the earliest symptoms of MS.   The study has provided important information about disease behavior.  The high volume of patients treated at the MS Center allows for greater understanding of many aspects of MS.  The MS Center also collaborates with basic science researchers within the Allegheny Singer Research Institute, furthering our understanding of the basic neuroimmunology of MS.