Growth hormone as concomitant treatment in severe fibromyalgia associated with low IGF-1 serum levels. A pilot study

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at IGF-1 LR3.

There is evidence of functional growth hormone (GH) deficiency, expressed by means of low insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) serum levels, in a subset of fibromyalgia patients.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, women only.

Twenty-four patients were enrolled in a randomized, open-label, best available care-controlled study.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, open-label, placebo-controlled and pilot study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the IGF-1 LR3 group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Everyone knew when IGF-1 LR3 was being given (open label), which is simpler to run but leaves more room for expectations to affect what is reported.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with IGF-1 LR3 could be set against what happens without it.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger IGF-1 LR3 study would be practical.

The number of tender points, the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) and the EuroQol 5D (EQ-5D), including a Quality of Life visual analogic scale (EQ-VAS) were assessed at different time-points.

What Was Measured

There is evidence of functional growth hormone (GH) deficiency, expressed by means of low insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) serum levels, in a subset of fibromyalgia patients.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Combined Modality Therapy, Exercise Therapy, Fibromyalgia, Human Growth Hormone, Insulin-Like Growth Factor I, Pilot Projects and Quality of Life.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, open-label and placebo-controlled study of IGF-1 LR3.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2007 (BMC musculoskeletal disorders), a journal based in England.

More context: the IGF-1 LR3 compound page, all human trials.