A Phase II test make an anti - cancer drug to sufferers of chronic fatigue syndrome ( CFS ) has produced encouraging , if puzzling , resultant . Two - third of the patient in the small trial evidence dramatic but delay response , while one - third gained picayune welfare from the treatment .
CFS is a particularly hard term to diagnose , let alone process . Having once been brush aside as psychosomatic , there is nowmedical acceptancethat it has a biologic cause , but not much agreement on what that is .
Moreover , apart from the drain deficiency of Energy Department , the symptom are so vague that many multitude with other shape have probably been target in the CFS basket , if indeed it is really one disease rather than several .
This confusion makes it particularly unvoiced to find treatments . program that do work for some people show no success for others . Nevertheless , a trial conducted at Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen , Norway , andreported in PloS Onecould be the most promising development so far .
In 2004 , Dr. Øystein Fluge and Professor Olav Mellawere treating lymphoma in a patient who also had CFS . To their surprisal , the individual ’s pancreatic fibrosis got better . While this could easily have been a conjunction , Fluge and Mellaconducted a trialof 30 people with CFS , half of whom were afford the same drug , Rituximab , as the original patient , while the other half receive a placebo .
Two - thirds of the patients give Rituximab showed significant improvement proportional to the control group , while one - third did not .
Now , Fluge and Mella have extended the trial to see if the benefits last , while also give Rituximab to most of those who were originally on the placebo . Of the 29 in the combined group , 18 patient role – labeled " responders " – reported clinically significant benefit , 14 of them dramatically so . Even some “ non - answerer ” showed augury of benefits much later in the discourse .
“ Eleven of the 18 responders were still in remittal three age after start the treatment , and some have now had no symptoms for five years , ” Flugetold New Scientist . “ Suddenly , their limbs started to work again and their bridge player were no longer cold or sweaty . ”
0 present major decline in quality in fatigue , 6 major improvement . Right graph , average score of answerer and non - responder . Credit Fluge et al . , PLoS One
Despite the benefits , Rituximab is no miracle cure . For one thing , it takes 4 - 6 month to even start work , and many responders took almost two class to show the full benefit , a holdup the authors attribute to the time taken for the drug to clear disease - triggering antibodies from patients .
Moreover , Rituximab has known side effects , admit increase vulnerability to viral infection and , in utmost cases , cardiac arrest . On the other helping hand , as a destroyer of B cells , Rituximab is used to process not just lymphoma but also autoimmune diseases and transplantation rejections , so there is an blanket body of evidence on when it can be apply safely .
The subject relied on affected role ' self - verbal description of their levels of fatigue , and one patient described their condition as significantly worse throughout the handling . However , with seven of the patient ab initio being part or principally bedfast , and even the milder cases severely drain , the benefit were often transformative .
