Catechol-O-Methyltransferase val158met Polymorphism Predicts Placebo Effect in Irritable Bowel Syndrome
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Ziogas, Dimitrios C.
Douaiher, Jeffrey
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048135Metadata
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Hall, Kathryn T., Anthony J. Lembo, Irving Kirsch, Dimitrios C. Ziogas, Jeffrey Douaiher, Karin B. Jensen, Lisa A. Conboy, John M. Kelley, Efi Kokkotou, and Ted J. Kaptchuk. 2012. Catechol-o-methyltransferase val158met polymorphism predicts placebo effect in irritable bowel syndrome. PLoS ONE 7(10): e48135.Abstract
Identifying patients who are potential placebo responders has major implications for clinical practice and trial design. Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), an important enzyme in dopamine catabolism plays a key role in processes associated with the placebo effect such as reward, pain, memory and learning. We hypothesized that the COMT functional val158met polymorphism, was a predictor of placebo effects and tested our hypothesis in a subset of 104 patients from a previously reported randomized controlled trial in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The three treatment arms from this study were: no-treatment (“waitlist”), placebo treatment alone (“limited”) and, placebo treatment “augmented” with a supportive patient-health care provider interaction. The primary outcome measure was change from baseline in IBS-Symptom Severity Scale (IBS-SSS) after three weeks of treatment. In a regression model, the number of methionine alleles in COMT val158met was linearly related to placebo response as measured by changes in IBS-SSS (p = .035). The strongest placebo response occurred in met/met homozygotes treated in the augmented placebo arm. A smaller met/met associated effect was observed with limited placebo treatment and there was no effect in the waitlist control. These data support our hypothesis that the COMT val158met polymorphism is a potential biomarker of placebo response.Other Sources
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3479140/pdf/Terms of Use
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