In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initiated its multi-site clinical assessment of ME/CFS (MCAM) study, enrolling and following ME/CFS patients recruited from multiple specialized clinics in order to facilitate systematic collection of data on measures of their illness. MCAM helps “describe the differences and similarities among ME/CFS patients, which will be used to evaluate the ME/CFS case definition.” Ultimately, this study aimed to improve how ME/CFS is diagnosed and treated, as well as to shed more light on the underlying biology of the illness.”
A key feature of the study was reliance on the clinical experience of physicians who specialize in the identification and management of ME/CFS patients rather than on a prespecified case definition. Healthy people and those with other illnesses that share some features with ME/CFS were enrolled in comparison groups.
The CDC has published its first paper from the MCAM study, “Multi-Site Clinical Assessment of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (MCAM): Design and Implementation of a Prospective/Retrospective Rolling Cohort Study.” Co-authored by multiple ME/CFS experts, the paper provides detailed information on the design of this multisite clinical investigation of ME/CFS, as well as descriptive information about participants enrolled in stage 1 of the study, which was limited to participants with ME/CFS.
Read the paper here.
In March, Solve hosted Dr. Elizabeth Unger, chief of Chronic Viral Diseases Branch at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and her CDC colleagues to share updates and progress on The School-Based Active Surveillance Project (presented by Anindita Nanda Issa, MD), the Long Covid Fatiguing Illness Recovery Program (ECHO) (presented by Jennifer Cope, MD, MPH), and initial findings from the Multi-site Study of Post-COVID conditions (Medical chart abstraction project) (presented by Miriam Nji, MD, MPH)
Watch Solve’s CDC Long Covid Updates webinar here.
