Therapiestudien zu ME/CFS und PCS: Aktuelle Übersicht

In the concluding presentation, Prof. Dr. Carmen Scheibenbogen summarised the clinical trials presented earlier—five of which were placebo-controlled—on the treatment of ME/CFS and post-COVID syndrome. First mentioned was the MYOFLAME-19 study, presented by Prof. Dr. Valentina Puntmann, which demonstrated improvements in cardiac function and inflammatory markers within a specific subgroup of post-COVID patients. As the second study, Scheibenbogen cited the CFS_CARE study—conducted by Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and initiated prior to the pandemic—which focuses on symptom-oriented care for ME/CFS patients. Scheibenbogen characterised the results of this study as sobering; however, she noted that patients reported experiencing improved disease management. Subsequently, she mentioned the placebo-controlled Low-Dose Naltrexone (LDN) study led by Prof. Dr. Luis Nacul; while this study did not achieve its primary endpoint—improvement in fatigue—additional study parameters still require evaluation. She then cited the study on Daratumumab—a monoclonal antibody—presented by Prof. Dr. Øystein Fluge, which demonstrated therapeutic efficacy only in patients positive for autoantibodies. Another study, investigating methylprednisolone, showed no impact on the neurocognitive impairments experienced by post-COVID patients. Scheibenbogen went on to mention several studies conducted by Prof. Dr. David Putrino: Rapamycin, Micro-Tesla magnetic therapy—which demonstrated significant improvements in cognition and mental health—and Valtrex, Celebrex, and Paxlovid. Finally, she cited Dr. Gunnar Gottschalk’s study on Rapamycin, which was administered at a low dose once weekly and resulted in an improvement across a wide range of symptoms. The final study cited was an immunoadsorption study conducted by the National Clinical Studies Group on ME/CFS and Post-COVID Syndrome (NKSG), which demonstrated a temporary improvement in symptoms in a subset of patients. Scheibenbogen concluded her presentation by emphasising the critical importance of biomarker data for characterising the highly heterogeneous disease ME/CFS. The central takeaway was that ME/CFS and post-COVID syndrome exhibit significant biological heterogeneity; consequently, trials should be more rigorously stratified according to immunological subtypes and biomarkers—a step that would ultimately lead to more targeted and meaningful treatment strategies.