New forms of botulinum toxin

April 19, 2009

Botulinum toxin, which most people know as Botox is produced by a bacteria – Clostridium botulinum. This bacteria actually produces 7 different type of this toxin: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Botox is botulinum toxin, type A, while another commercial product, Myobloc is botulinum toxin, type B. Researchers, Drs. Dolly, Aoki and their colleagues managed to combine type A and E, according to a report in The Journal of Neuroscience. Test tube experiments suggest that this combination could prove to be more effective for the treatment of pain than type A alone. This is a very promising discovery, since Botox is effective for only about two thirds of chronic migraine sufferers. The combined toxin could be also effective for other types of pain.

Written by
Alexander Mauskop, MD