Immunoadsorption not effective (study)

[JollyRoger]

Hi,

I found a new study about immunoadsorption for Long COVID sufferers.

Unfortunately, its in German.
The English article will be available in two weeks according to the website.

https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/2...s-Fatigue-dominanten-Long-Post-COVID-Syndroms

The article basically says that the treatment removed all the relevant autoantibodies in ten patients (GPCR-AAK like beta1 and beta2).
They suffered from Long covid for about 24,5 months.
There was a very slight and irrelevant improvement.

Overall, it seems unlikely that these autoantibodies are the cause of the problem.
It rather seems to be an epiphenomenon.


There could be autoantibodies which are still attached to the Membran of the receptors, though.

The results are disappointing but its important to know because some people spend a lot of money for this treatment (at least in Germany).

 

[Wishful]

There are, and have been, plenty of "scientific sounding" theories about the cause of ME. Some people will be desperate enough to fall for the unproven claims. I'll wait for statistical evidence that the treatment actually works for people. If I did believe in a theory, I'd be willing to volunteer to try it, but I wouldn't pay to be someone's guinea pig.

 

[BrightCandle]

GIven the prior failures of removal of antibodies in ME/CFS I am not surprised. It is one of the big issues I have with a lot of the Long Covid research, by calling it a different disease they have spent billions replicating findings from ME/CFS and retesting drugs that failed before. So many dropped ME/CFS research to pursue the new hotness with Long Covid and made no actual progress in the state of the art at all. For all the activity I see a wasteland of new research far worse than was there before Long Covid. Once you cut through all the replication not a lot is happening.

 

[JollyRoger]

GIven the prior failures of removal of antibodies in ME/CFS I am not surprised. It is one of the big issues I have with a lot of the Long Covid research, by calling it a different disease they have spent billions replicating findings from ME/CFS and retesting drugs that failed before. So many dropped ME/CFS research to pursue the new hotness with Long Covid and made no actual progress in the state of the art at all. For all the activity I see a wasteland of new research far worse than was there before Long Covid. Once you cut through all the replication not a lot is happening.

People hope that therapies like BC007 or immunoadsorption will be the salvation. But they are going to be disappointed soon.

Autoimmunity seems to be a red Hering.
The same thing happened with Rituximab.
And they repeat this observation again and again.

 

[Wishful]

And they repeat this observation again and again.

Any excuse to try <whatever> yet again means profit for someone, so we'll keep seeing <whatever> being pushed as a treatment for the latest disease.

 

[Murph]

Scheinbenbogen has published a couple of previous pilot studies finding immunoadsorption worked for small groups.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29543914/

The study to which this thread refers is also small: 10 patients. It's not a great sign that it has come back negative, but it's not definitive either.

Scheinbenbogen also has another trial in the works, happening in August this year:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05629988
That, if successful, will feed into a proper randomised clinical trial of immunoadsorption and B-cell depletion therapy.

 

[JollyRoger]

For me this study is not convincing.
It's not a randomised double blind study.
So the effect could be placebo.
And, if you look at the graphs the change is not really spectacular:
Some were even worse afterwards.
I think the results will be the same like the study with Rituximab.

Don't get me wrong:
If I could try the therapy for free I would give it a shot.
But I would not spend 20.000€ for this treatment.

And a lot of people in Germany are desperate and spend this money.

And you are right: We need more studies.



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