Okay.
We described the CCSVI treatment by means of standard balloon angioplasty in a paper published in the Journal of Vascular Surgery last December. According to our results, angioplasty was demonstrated to be safe. We never had major vascular complications and patients were discharged from hospital on the same day in the early afternoon.
I sent members of the committee some pictures showing the technique, but this is not really an experimental technique. It's a well-known technique that is simply applied to a new venous segment in which this kind of malformation was not previously described.
We followed up with our patients for 18 months and found a significant reduction in the number of relapses of multiple sclerosis in them, compared to what had happened in the previous two years. We found a significant reduction in so-called active lesions measured by blinded MRI. We also measured a significant improvement in relapsing/remitting multiple sclerosis patients in cognitive and motor functions.
Very importantly, we also found a significant decrease in chronic fatigue. Chronic fatigue is one of the more disabling symptoms in people affected by multiple sclerosis. Until now, there has been no effective treatment for this specific symptom.