Replies to post #11744 on Biotech Values

[urche]

Re: VSGN

"What about the big picture? Does the science make sense?"

I agree with your assesment that the procedure sounds so "hokey" that I wonder how someone ever thought of trying it and who were the first people who agreed to have it done to them?

It is worth watching with healthy skepticism, IMO. Aside from the similar tickers, the story shares striking similarity to Vasomedical's (VASO) work with EECP for heart failure and angina. One can postulate a half-way plausible mechanism, but the results and anecdotal testimonials seem way better than anyone would think possible for such a simple, safe, low technology procedure. The similarity also includes the fact that both procedures seem to tout survival benefit despite missing seemingly easier endpoints.



urche

[poorgradstudent]

Well, the paper admits that the method is a little haphazard. The concept that you can get a homogenous response from whole blood exposed to UV rays and oxidative stress may be a point of discussion.

Theoretically, the technique suggests that you can create an anti-inflammatory cytokine response using this method. However, in the JACC paper none of the cytokines that they measured in this trial were significant between the treatment and placebo arm. So that raises the question whether or not the method is working in practice as they think it is in *theory*.

The paper defends the absence of a specific effect on the circulating cytokine levels by suggesting that the levels in the blood are not reflective of the levels in the tissue (where the action is). However, using an intramuscular injection, it is hard to see how the cytokines take a purely tissue route to get to the vessels and the heart itself.

The concept of inflammation being important in the etiology of heart disease relates more to the infiltrating cells in the myocardium releasing pro-inflammatory cytokines. This method would not stop that signaling, as far as I understand. Also, the absence of an effect on the ejection fraction is troubling. The ejection fraction along with the treadmill test (not different between groups) were the two measures that best reflected a direct treatment effect in this trial.