Ankush Dehlia has a review paper published with Mark Guthridge (
thread, abstract below). Guthridge is not actually the researcher to whom the TCR funding went. (That's Ken
Walder, who is at a different Deakin campus). Perhaps Dehlia is working with Walder but they simply didn't co-author the paper together?
There's also a second or third(!) part of Deakin looking at mecfs, which is running an opportunistic
clinical trial on trimetazadine after they found it doing some interesting metabolic stuff in bipolar.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39353473/
The persistence of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) after SARS-CoV-2 infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Ankush Dehlia 1 ,
Mark A Guthridge 2
Affiliations
Affiliations
- 1 School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia.
- 2 School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia. Electronic address: m.guthridge@deakin.edu.au.
Free article
Abstract
Objectives: Long COVID-19 (LC) patients experience a number of chronic idiopathic symptoms that are highly similar to those of post-viral myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). We have therefore performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the proportion of LC patients that satisfy ME/CFS diagnostic criteria.
Methods: Clinical studies published between January 2020 and May 2023 were identified using the PubMed, Web of Science, Embase and CINAHL databases. Publication inclusion/exclusion criteria were formulated using the global CoCoPop framework. Data were pooled using a random-effects model with a restricted maximum-likelihood estimator. Study quality was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute critical assessment tool.
Results: We identified 13 eligible studies that reported a total of 1973 LC patients. Our meta-analysis indicated that 51% (95% CI, 42%-60%) of LC patients satisfied ME/CFS diagnostic criteria, with fatigue, sleep disruption, and muscle/joint pain being the most common symptoms. Importantly, LC patients also experienced the ME/CFS hallmark symptom, post-exertional malaise.
Conclusions: Our study not only demonstrates that LC patients exhibit similar symptom clusters to ME/CFS, but that approximately half of LC patients satisfy a diagnosis of ME/CFS. Our findings suggest that current ME/CFS criteria could be adapted to the identification of a subset of LC patients that may facilitate the standardised diagnosis, management and the recruitment for clinical studies in the future.
Keywords: Chronic fatigue syndrome; Diagnosis; Long-COVID; Long-haul COVID-19; Meta-analysis; Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome; Post-acute sequelae of COVID-19; Post-exertional malaise; Post-viral syndrome; Prevalence.