Overview > Motor neurone disease > Disease process interventions

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Disease process interventions

Riluzole is currently the only medication approved by regulatory authorities for the treatment of ALS, including Europe, the USA, and Australia (Orrell 2010).

How to treat motor neurone disease

A comprehensive How to Treat Motor Neurone Disease guide is now available for health professionals.

Riluzole

There are two brands of riluzole available in Australia. Rilutek™ is manufactured by Sanofi and the generic version APO-Riluzole is made by Apotex.

Riluzole appears to block the release of glutamate from nerve cells (neurones).

Riluzole is safe and effective for slowing disease progression to a modest degree in ALS (Miller and others 2009a). Riluzole 100 mg daily is reasonably safe and probably prolongs median survival by about two to three months in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Miller and others 2012).

A liquid formulation of riluzole is also available on the PBS in Australia (RACGP 2019).

Other disease process interventions

Riluzole remains the only medication to have shown benefit which has stood up to the methodology of the Cochrane review process (Orrell 2010).

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