Cochrane Review: 'Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome', Larun et al. - New version October 2019

And in the the case of the CMRC meeting, no show!
I would also pay good money to see a conversation between @David30th and Richard Morley, Cochrane's Consumer Engagement Officer who will be one of the people standing in for Karla at the CMRC meeting. https://consumers.cochrane.org/whos-who

 

I have heard from a colleague at the EQUATOR/REWARD conference in Berlin (https://www.reward-equator-conference-2020.com/) that Lisa Bero has got this job. She used to be on the Governing Board of Cochrane. @dave30th knows her reasonably well...

 

Not sure where else to put this, but it seems relevant to log it here.

SW made this interesting comment (in a talk given in 2008) on the Wearden et al. (1998) fluoxetine and exercise trial that was included in the Cochrane review:
"Exercise can be helpful for patients with CFS but many cannot tolerate it."

However, looking at the trial report, this is not mentioned - although *only a third* of pts in the exercise group actually completed treatment. Wearden's method of treating drop-outs (by LOCF) was also criticised in a subsequent letter to BJPsych.

tbf, the review does state that "Wearden 1998 reported large dropout rates in all intervention groups, and many participants were lost to follow‐up." but still includes the study data. No mention of tolerability though.

 

Can you find details of the talk?

 

I can't verify the accuracy of the source. SW has previously said that any slides of his online are likely to have been tampered with, but it seems an odd thing to say [the bit about tolerability], and even odderer if it *had* been altered.

 

It is strange that the date given on the slide for the Wearden et al paper is 1988 rather than 1998. Odd mistake.

It would be interesting to know the date of those reported comments by Komaroff, which seem unhelpful to him.

 

Nah. Just failure to proofread his own slides. It would be an odd mistake if they *had* been doctored.

 

That's what I meant. That's his "odd mistake", not anyone else's. I t doesn't look good.

 

Wearden talks about 37% dropping out due to exercise in this video at about 9 mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2MgCrGhfBg

 

I think the newspaper clipping is from July 1990. His words seem to have been taken out of context when asked to comment on research by another group.

 

Thanks for the links, folks!

 

I was very slow to realise that the title SW gave to his lecture on CFS, which is linked above, given in 2008 was "Treatment of neurotic disorders".
Hard to square that with some of his claims about not believing it to be a mental disorder, or whatever it is he claims.

 

tbf (ish), we don't know whether that was the title, as the first slide mentions a workshop, not a talk.

 

Amendment of the current version of the review:

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003200.pub8/information#whatsNew

Amended 12 March 2020:


Note added from the editorial team at Cochrane Editorial and Methods Department on 12 March 2019, 'A webpage providing information and regular updates on the progress of the planned update of this Cochrane Review is available here: community.cochrane.org/organizational‐info/people/central‐executive‐team/editorial‐methods/projects/stakeholder‐engagement‐high‐profile‐reviews‐pilot'.

[typo (2019 instead of 2020) in the original]

Thread on the "stakeholder engagement in high-profile reviews pilot" here.

 

I noticed that there is an apparent newsletter for updates: exerciseforme-cfsupdates@cochrane.org. It's at the bottom of the page. It simply says to email to ask to be updated, the same address for general enquiries.

It says for updates to this page, unclear whether it means for the project or just this summary page.

 

Papers referring to the different versions of the review:

https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1121431847


Among the four publications refering to the current version, the paper by Andrew Lloyd & C. Sandler discussed here isn't listed yet.

Interesting that the review's current version seems to be cited alternately to affirm the alleged "moderate" quality of evidence for benefits from GET (Lloyd) or highlight that "the clinical usefulness of GET is highly controversial" (Kim et al)

And then there is this protocol:
Law R, Williams L, Langley J, et al
‘Function First—Be Active, Stay Independent’—promoting physical activity and physical function in people with long-term conditions by primary care: a protocol for a realist synthesis with embedded co-production and co-design
BMJ Open 2020;10:e035686. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035686

Which refers to the review, among other references, with this simple sentence:

"Previous reviews have explored the effects of physical activity interventions in sedentary adults and those with long-term conditions in the primary care setting."

So -- how to keep track of whether the latest update of the review is adquately referenced to? And how to keep track of whether the update impacts the validty of all the older cross-references?

(Not surprised about some of the authors who had cited the older versions, only about the amount of citations.)

[Edited for clarity.]

 

I signed up for that March 10, not had anything back.

 

Yeah, I signed up on the 10th March as well, and I've also not had anything back yet.

 

There's an update from May 21st 2020

https://www.cochrane.org/CD003200/DEPRESSN_exercise-treatment-adults-chronic-fatigue-syndrome

 

The problem is that we don't know what the new content is - that URL is the same as was used in Oct 2019, https://www.s4me.info/threads/cochr...version-october-2019.11564/page-6#post-206342