Michelle
Decennial ME/CFS patient
- Messages
- 172
- Location
- Portland, OR
Clinical impact of B-cell depletion with the anti-CD20 antibody rituximab in chronic fatigue syndrome: a preliminary case series
This is a very small study (only 3 patients!) in which there was marked improvement with rituximab, a drug normally used to treat Hodgkin's lymphoma. In light of what Dr. Mikovits is finding in the Incline Village cohort, and that I've heard some of them have been responding favorably to various cancer drugs, it made me wonder if, at least in a sub-group of ME/CFS patients, the disease is a chronic pre-cancer state. Or rather, the immune defect is allowing a viral load that lays the foundation for cancer.
Maybe I'm being too simplistic in looking at this study and Dr. Mikovits's work -- or maybe just stating the simply obvious. But it seems like it would change the way we look at the disease and cancer.
This is a very small study (only 3 patients!) in which there was marked improvement with rituximab, a drug normally used to treat Hodgkin's lymphoma. In light of what Dr. Mikovits is finding in the Incline Village cohort, and that I've heard some of them have been responding favorably to various cancer drugs, it made me wonder if, at least in a sub-group of ME/CFS patients, the disease is a chronic pre-cancer state. Or rather, the immune defect is allowing a viral load that lays the foundation for cancer.
Maybe I'm being too simplistic in looking at this study and Dr. Mikovits's work -- or maybe just stating the simply obvious. But it seems like it would change the way we look at the disease and cancer.