The Italian doctor pioneering a radical and unproven theory that multiple sclerosis is a vascular disease says patients should seek MRI scans and treatment.

Dr. Paolo Zamboni urged doctors to be more open to his theory during a media conference at St. Joseph's Hospital today - his first North American appearance since chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency started gaining worldwide attention in the fall.

“If I should be a neurologist and read similar reports ... the first thing I should do is to investigate the neck veins of my patients,” said Zamboni. “My suggestion is to investigate patients as soon as we can, not to simply criticize.”

He said the test to find out if the veins draining blood from the brain are blocked — and the procedure to open them up to improve blood flow — are already known to be safe and effective and should be available to MS patients.

“We think treatment of CCSVI can be done,” he said. “CCSVI is a vascular disease, probably congenital, with guidelines in diagnosis and treatment."

However, the ministry of health said today it won’t fund the MRI scans or the treatment because it considers Zamboni’s theory to be “experimental.”

Local doctors say it would overwhelm the health care system.

“We’d swamp MRI capacity,” said Dr. John Paulseth, director of the MS clinic at McMaster University Medical Centre.

He said there isn’t enough proof yet to use up that many health resources to do the scans and surgery.

“I think his hypothesis is very worthy of further study,” said Paulseth. “But it needs to be corroborated.”

St. Joseph’s is one of two places in Canada - the other is the University of British Columbia - testing Zamboni’s controversial theory.

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