Use of Xyrem to Improve Sleep in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Status:
Terminated
Trial end date:
2008-12-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Chronic fatigue syndrome is a disabling illness for which there is no specific treatment. As
a group, CFS patients have disturbed sleep with frequent arousals and the sense of not having
slept upon awakening. Xyrem (Sodium oxybate) is known to improve deep sleep and so may reduce
the sleep disturbances of CFS leading to better sleep with less fatigue. Its ability to
produce the rapid onset of deep sleep is a reason it became a street drug, but its
availability is currently limited via distribution through a single centralized pharmacy.
Xyrem has been successfully used based on results from a study on patients with fibromyalgia
(FM), an ailment closely resembling CFS. However, in that study, the researchers provided no
information as to whether patients had FM alone or FM plus CFS. Thus, it is not clear from
this study just which patient may be helped. I have prescribed Xyrem for patients who have
both FM and CFS with good results. In this study, funded by the company that makes Xyrem, I
propose testing the drug's efficacy on patients with CFS alone - that is, they do not have
fibromyalgia.
Volunteers for this study will complete paper and pencil questionnaires about their symptoms
as well as a computerized test to assess their degree of brain fog. They will then be
randomly assigned to one of two groups, placebo or drug. Volunteers will not know what group
they are in until the end of the study. Only the drug group will receive the medication. The
placebo group will receive a substance that looks identical to the real medicine but with no
active ingredients. The medication comes as a liquid and patients will start taking an
initial dose about 30 min before they expect to sleep. If subjects awaken after less than 5
hrs of sleep, they will take a second dose. If they sleep more than 5 hrs, they will be told
to skip taking the second dose. We will call patients weekly to see how they are doing on the
"drug." If they have tolerable side effects or report significant improvement, we will
maintain the dose. But if patients report no effect of treatment, the dosage will be
incremented by 1 ml per week until good sleep is achieved or a predetermined maximum is
reached.
Phase:
Phase 4
Details
Lead Sponsor:
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey