Journal of IiME Volume 4 Issue 1 www.investinme.org SPEAKERS and ABSTRACTS of the 5th INVEST in ME INTERNATIONAL ME/CFS CONFERENCE table in real time. After routine, though expanded echocardiography, each patient was evaluated for IVRT response before, during and after oxygen administration for 5 minutes each, initially at 4 lpm NC and then typically at progressively higher doses up to 40% FIO2 mask oxygen at 10 lpm flow rate if they were non-toxic to 4 lpm NC. IVRT or isovolumetric relaxation time is an internal timing measurement in milliseconds (msec) on echocardiography, which is inversely related to cellular free energy in myocardial cells. All 67 patients were categorized as either new patients or patients on various treatment algorithms if they were follow-up patients. The various treatment algorithms are complex as well as novel and cannot be fully discussed here but serve to illustrate the power of the proposed oxygen toxicity model to discriminate among various treatments. RESULTS: The 91 total patients were segregated into a) new patients, b) patients treated in this clinic with standard therapies, c) patients treated in this clinic with standard therapies plus one novel, low molecular weight (LMW), cell signaling factor (CSF) peptide in a transdermal gel and d) patients treated in this clinic with standard therapies plus an expanded set of LMW, cell signaling factor gels. Of the 67 consecutive patients, less those who did not meet criteria for CFS and/or were deemed atypical (6 were so categorized), 26 were new patients and 25 of 26 or 96.1% were toxic to oxygen as evidenced by a rise in IVRT on exposure to oxygen and indicating a reduction in myocardial cellular energetics. 26 of 26 new patients or 100% were toxic to 40% mask oxygen. This contrasts to 6 of 17 or 35% of the controls that were toxic to oxygen at 4 lpm and 11 of 17 or 65% of controls that were toxic to 40% mask oxygen. When patients from the group of 67 consecutive cases, excluding the 6 outliers as well as treatment responders, were statistically compared (N = 53) in their IVRT response on oxygen to the controls (N = 17) on oxygen at 4 lpm NC, there was almost no chance they could have been the same group (p < 0.0004). CONCLUSION: These results demonstrate that within certain well defined limits of the case definition for CFS, the relative cardiac cellular energetic response to oxygen in CFS (strongly negative) compared to Invest in ME (Charity Nr. 1114035) controls (strongly positive to weakly negative) is significantly different (p < 0.0004). Furthermore, that the absolute response to oxygen (toxic vs. tolerant) yields 96% sensitivity (CFS being essentially a strongly oxygen toxic state) and 65% specificity compared to controls (35% are weakly toxic) at 4 lpm NC. At 40% mask oxygen, 100% of CFS cases are toxic, but so were 65% of controls. When patients were sub-categorized according to increasingly powerful treatment algorithms, they were increasingly transformed to an oxygen tolerant state, which in the case of the most powerful algorithm, was associated with a significantly (p<0.006) improved clinical status. We conclude that CFS is an oxygen toxic state and that oxygen toxicity status appears to determine outcome in therapeutic trials and is therefore, a control point in the evaluation of chronic fatigue syndrome. DISCUSSION: These findings appear to force a narrowing of potential causes of CFS because whatever pathophysiology one puts forth must explain universal oxygen toxicity in chronic fatigue syndrome. It is also important to view oxygen toxicity as less a cause of CFS but rather a final common pathway whose presence is downstream from the issue of etiology or etiologies, though it appears to determine outcome. Dr. Jonathan Kerr MD, PhD “Sir Joseph Hotung Senior Lecturer in Inflammation” at St.George’s University of London and Consultant in Microbiology in the Dept. of Cellular and Molecular Medicine Jonathan Kerr qualified in medicine from Queen’s University of Belfast (1987), and completed training as a medical microbiologist (1995). He has worked as a microbiologist in Belfast, Manchester and London, taking up post as a Consultant Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Royal Brompton Hospital / Imperial College in June 2001, and then Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation at St George’s University of London in 2005. His interest in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) began during a study of the consequences of Page 49/56
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