Naviaux ME/CFS Study - the Basics; Post Lyme Study to Begin

[Cort]

Dr. Gordon reported on the study he and Naviaux did in ME/CFS that he expects to be published in the fall. They are now engaged in a larger study

http://www.gordonmedical.com/unrave...unding-replication-study-on-cfidsme-findings/

Dr. Robert Naviaux and I have submitted for publication a study, now under peer review and expected to be published in the fall of 2016, looking at 450 metabolites in 43 people with CFIDS/ME and 43 age and sex matched controls. We found a characteristic chemical signature differentiating the patients from the controls.

We just received a grant, that along with donations to our newly established non-profit, will allow us to replicate this study. If our findings are indeed replicated we will have a biochemical test for CFIDS/ME.

Gordon and Naviaux will also begin a similar post-Lyme study in the fall. My guess is that they expect to find a similar chemical signature. Gordon was quite honest about his effectiveness treating these diseases.

Our plan is to start enrolling Gordon Medical patients this Fall in a “post Lyme”metabolomic study. This study will biochemically define chronic Lyme disease and if large enough, allow us to define subgroups of these patients.

Some day soon, I envision us able to use the groupings to predict appropriate treatment regimes. At the current time I have good track record in treating treatment resistant chronic Lyme patients who can afford to stay near my clinic for long periods of time and try multiple therapies. This is wasteful of resources and stressful to the patient. It also limits treatment to the wealthy. Currently it is the best we can do, but we need to do much better.

 

[h3ro]

Really curious to see the actual study. Fall is way too long ! :-(

 

[Cort]

Really curious to see the actual study. Fall is way too long ! :-(

I know....it always seems like it takes so much time. Once the paper gets accepted then the journal has to fit it into their schedule. I guess they're filled up for the summer.

 

[Francis Martin]

A blood based diagnostic test would be a significant development.

Currently the Government Laboratories in the United Kingdom are paid about £200 pounds [US $250 ish] for a statutory Mass Spectrometry analysis e.g. of antibiotics in meat. So that may be an indication of the market price for a test.

I've been a bit surprised by some of the comments I've seen re costs and (to a lesser extent) re up-scaling of testing. Once you've identified the target molecule (which they presumably think they have) then the costs are likely to be in the £200 pounds [US $250 ish] per sample range. I haven't worked in laboratories in recent years but roughly 20 years ago I priced a Mass Spectrometry (£120K ish) for a standard instrument [LC-MS]; research instruments [LC-MS-MS] are significantly more expensive [possibly 2 to 3 times the cost from memory]. You may be able to run 100 samples a day, depending on the test, but there's likely to be some downtime for maintenance etc. Still you can see that theoretically you can perform more than 30,000 tests per year on a single instrument. I've heard of laboratories which currently run more than 50 Mass Spectrometers performing a single test, so there are already examples of large volume systems.

Government laboratories in the US (Food and Drug Administration etc) and all European Union member states have Mass Spectrometry and could potentially upscale to deliver testing. Governments have been moving away from delivery of services (but they do use Mass Spectrometry analysis e.g. of antibiotics in meat) so it's not clear that the Government would itself provide a testing service.

PS - do you know if the test is related to the citric acid cycle?

Thanks