Interview with Dr. Miguel B. Royo-Salvador on the 10th anniversary of the Institut Chiari & Siringomielia & Escoliosis de Barcelona

On June 12, 2018, the Institut Chiari & Siringomielia & Escoliosis de Barcelona (ICSEB) celebrated its 10^th anniversary. In this interview, founder and director, Dr. Miguel B. Royo Salvador, explains the fundamental stages through which the Institut has passed during its 10 years of excellence; which have led ICSEB to become a centre of international reference for the diagnosis, treatment and follow up of the Filum Disease.

 – Good morning Dr. Royo Salvador.

–  Good morning

–  On the occasion of the 10^th anniversary of the Institut Chiari de Barcelona, I will ask you some questions.

–  My pleasure

–  For this occasion, the motto “10 years of excellence” was chosen. What do you want to express with this phrase?

–  We want to highlight the work we have done since the inauguration of the Institut Chiari de Barcelona, with the objective of applying new medical concepts, which we have proposed through previous research. It is the concept of a new disease and based on these concepts we have devised new treatments and it is their excellent results that we are celebrating on this 10^th

– What is innovative in the work of the Institut Chiari de Barcelona?

–  As I said, we have described a new disease. This is our institute’s most significant achievement. This new disease includes other known diseases that were considered to be of unknown origin until then. This discovery encompasses these diseases of unknown origin and at the same time gives them an explanation or explains their cause. This allows us to understand the disease, which is the main step to treat it in the most appropriate way.

–  Doctor Royo, can you explain what the Filum Disease is and how it manifests itself?

–  The Filum Disease is a disease that affects the entire central nervous system of the human being, the CNS’s envelope, the skull and the spine. It is a condition that is concocted and initiates at 9 weeks of development the human embryo, meaning that all human embryos go through a similar process. The nervous system, by hormonal orders, grows less than its envelope, the spine. It is this disharmonic growth that creates a mechanical conflict at a point where both are joined by a ligament and generates a set of diseases.

–  When a patient is diagnosed with the Filum Disease, what should he or she keep in mind?

–  Right, really, it is usually us here at our Institute to diagnose the Filum Disease, because we know the condition, we described it and understand what it consists in. However, patients will mainly be diagnosed with conditions that are included in the Filum Disease, and they come to us with those diagnoses: Arnold-Chiari Syndrome Type I, idiopathic Syringomyelia, idiopathic Scoliosis, Platybasia, Odontoid retroflexion, basilar invagination, kinking of the brainstem and in some cases fibromyalgia and some patients who are affected by chronic fatigue syndrome.

–  Would it be right to say that the Institute Chiari de Barcelona offers a worldwide unique treatment?

–  Actually, given that we carried out the research through a doctoral thesis presented at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and approved cum laude in 1992, it is obvious that we hold all the knowledge and if someone wants to acquire that knowledge, they are free to do so as the publications are public. And we later have also made publications in relation to this discovery and we are therefore the entity to have published most worldwide about the topic, around 500 pages, published and approved by scientific and ethical committees, so really we cannot be told that we do not publish.

–  Are there also research activities, or do you merely see to the patients that approach the Institute for consultations?

–  The Institut Chiari de Barcelona is mainly dedicated to care activity, but it’s foundation lay on its research, we carry out research activities on a daily basis.

–  Does the Institut Chiari de Barcelona share all it is has been investigating with other healthcare professionals?

–  The purpose is sharing. So much so that at the same time as the Institut Chiari was set up, also the Chiari & Scoliosis & Syringomyelia Foundation came into existence. It has three goals: research regarding these conditions, training, which implies teaching what we have discovered, and since the Foundation exists and since the foundation of the Institute, we have carried monographic conferences to explain our discoveries in different European countries. Hence, what we do with our research and monographic conferences is to explain what we have discovered to benefit of all patients, and to offer social aid as a third purpose of the Foundation.

–  Dr Royo, would you like to use this platform to send a message to your patients?

–  Yes, I would like to tell my patients that I they have my complete admiration, because what we have done is to carry out a somewhat investigation, because it implies that we say that conventional medicine does not know the causes of those conditions and we have contributed these causes ant at the same time original treatments. My admiration for them is for their intelligence and perseverance, because they have known to interpret and understand that what we explain is the right path to the correct treatment for their severe diseases, through social networks and through our publications. And hence my admiration, also for their perseverance, because they have had to struggle with situations of incomprehension, and these situations of incomprehension come from the health care side, because the symptoms are not well understood, a majority of patients has been diagnosed as nervous, psychiatric patients, imaginary invalids or fibromyalgic patients, and they have overcome all these criteria, they found the way, they found us and we have been able to help the, with a treatment that is etiological, meaning that it eliminates the cause of the disease.

–  Thank you very much, Doctor Royo.

–  Thank you.