USA: InCellDx Dr Patterson - New lab service offering cytokine tests to Covid longhaulers

B

Braganca

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
This US lab service claims to have great success diagnosing long covid patients and successfully treating them. They offer a lab assay of interleukins and cytokines. It’s not clear which are offered. The literature is not yet published.

https://covidlonghaulers.com/

interview with the founder of company.


Evidence linked to on site is a medium article and an unpublished paper.
https://covidlonghaulers.com/wp-con...al-Disturbance-in-Long-Haulers-12-22-2020.pdf

https://covidlonghaulers.com/wp-con...Decoded-Using-Machine-Learning-12-22-2020.pdf
 
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InitialConditions said:
This looks highly suspect (and I'm not just talking about the website's aesthetics / design). The Myhill mitochrondia test comes to mind....
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Yes.. My recollection from ME researchers who study immune system is that cytokines fluctuate greatly based on time of day, or subject activities, or medications, and therefore make poor diagnostics. Is that correct?
 
We have threads on two papers by Dr Bruce Patterson:
Persistence of SARS CoV-2 S1 Protein in CD16+ Monocytes in Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) ..., 2021, Patterson et al (in prep)
Immune-Based Prediction of COVID-19 Severity and Chronicity Decoded Using Machine Learning Patterson et al. 2021

As far as I can see, those two papers just identify some changes in the immune systems of people who have Covid-19, or have had it fairly recently and have lingering symptoms. Neither paper had controls of people who have had Covid-19 and don't have lingering symptoms. Have there been any other papers by Patterson that might be relevant?


Patterson the 'eat this' article said:
And what we did is we compared the immune profiles of acute COVID with, basically, long haulers. And it was completely different and abnormal.
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Yes, they compared patients with Covid-19 (mild to severe cases) and patients with 'PASC'(=Long Covid) with controls who had not had Covid-19. I can't see how they can say that the PASC patients were completely different and abnormal - there was no comparison with the immune system of people who were recovering well from Covid-19*.

The machine learning paper characterised the PASC patients:
Models were also analyzed for feature importance to identify relevant cytokines to generate a disease score. Multi-class models generated a score specific for the PASC patients and defined as S1 = (IFN-γ + IL-2)/CCL4-MIP-1β.
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* Edit - see for example this paper Dendritic cell deficiencies persist seven months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, 2021, Pérez-Gómez et al - even people only mildly affected had immune systems that were still recovering 7 months after their Covid-19 illness.
 
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OK but this is going to continue to ramp up—looks like he is selling it in your country now…


 
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I may be late to the game with this convo - but don't you think at least with Dr. Patterson's background, he deserves some benefit of the doubt before we label him snake-oil, no?

Maybe it's my blinders on, but I can't imagine the former Medical Director of Diagnostic Virology at Stanford University Hospitals and Clinics to be propagating false narratives to drive a bottom-line.
 
Dakota15 said:
I may be late to the game with this convo - but don't you think at least with Dr. Patterson's background, he deserves some benefit of the doubt before we label him snake-oil, no?
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There is never any room for 'benefit of the doubt' in science. So much work in science is flawed by poor methodology and over enthusiasm. Unless you assume that work may be hyped before you read you will find yourself taken in by all sorts of empty stuff.

But generally it is not too difficult to identify the good work - it gives you hard data upfront and draws modest conclusions. And good scientists don't tweet to market their work. People like Fluge and Mella deliberately discouraged people from using their proposed treatment before it was properly tested.

I don't think having been part of a university hospital is any guarantee against becoming a snake oil merchant.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
I don't think having been part of a university hospital is any guarantee against becoming a snake oil merchant.
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Sadly, I agree. I can think of a couple of examples who have come here to tell us about their 'nutriceuticals' and gone away again when we probed and criticised their so called research that was small, brief and open label studies, and/or 'it works for my patients'.

We condemn the BPS snake oil sales people who push CBT/GET/LP etc on the basis of flawed studies. We need to be consistent and do the same for any pharmacological treatments too.
 
Am I allowed to post it? It's an opinion piece, I don't know why it would be behind a paywall.... (edit: to clarify, I clicked it and there is no paywall for me, and I am not a subscriber.)

...

Scientists and physicians are working hard to characterize long COVID. We’re now beginning to understand that it is a unique and distinct medical condition of its own. Research shows that long COVID occurs when spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2, virus that causes COVID-19, remain in a person’s body, in reservoirs of the immune system. The spike proteins are not able to reproduce, as they lack the genetic material required, but they do cause inflammation as the body’s immune system reacts to them. These spike proteins then spread around the body, especially during exercise, and cross the blood-brain barrier, which likely accounts for the exercise intolerance of many long haulers, as well as the neurological effects.

We are also able to reliably diagnose long COVID patients in a nonsubjective way by analyzing patterns in cytokines, different types of proteins produced by a person’s immune system, to identify a long COVID immune system “fingerprint.” With this better understanding, new treatment approaches are emerging that address the underlying causes of the disease, not just the symptoms.

Whenever the COVID pandemic is finally brought to heel, we will have another very real, very challenging and very costly public health crisis waiting to take its place. The sooner we acknowledge this crisis, the sooner we can begin properly caring for those afflicted. Organizations like the Long COVID Alliance can help to provide patients and their families with resources and support, but more professional dialogue among doctors and collaboration among researchers is critical to ensuring they have access to the research and medical support they need.

Unfortunately, long COVID is going to be a public health issue for the foreseeable future. We need to come together now to help each other through it.

Bruce Patterson is the CEO of IncellDx, where he is working toward a new paradigm for predicting, identifying and treating long COVID-19. He previously served as medical director of diagnostic virology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
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