Mr. Speaker, on April 18, 2012, the Minister of Health announced that a team of researchers has been selected to undertake an interventional phase I/II clinical trial for chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, CCSVI, in persons with multiple sclerosis. The objective of this trial, which is to be co-funded by the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, is to determine the safety and efficacy of the procedure proposed by Dr. Zamboni.
The successful team will now need to obtain ethics approval from their relevant university research ethics board or boards before recruiting patients and conducting the trial. The funds will be released and the study will begin as soon as ethics approval is granted. The clinical trial is expected to begin in the fall of 2012.
The closing date to submit applications to conduct this clinical trial was February 29, 2012. Applicants were invited to devise the best possible trial with a sample size of 100 patients and then propose the budget required to implement such a trial. For this reason, the budget was not specified in the funding opportunity. Both the MS Society of Canada and CIHR are committed to funding the trial subject to positive outcomes at ethics review stages.
Further information concerning this announcement, evaluation criteria, conflict of interest requirements and next steps, such as review by the research ethics board of the research institute concerned, may be found at http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/45249.html, http://www.researchnet-recherchenet.ca/rnr16/viewOpportunityDetails.do?progCd=10266&language=E&fodAgency=CIHR&view=browseArchive&browseArc=true&org=CIHR and http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/193.html.