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By Shamard Charles, M.D. and Reuters
In the United States, scientists say they have taken steps to develop a diagnostic test for chronic fatigue syndrome, a disease characterized by exhaustion and other debilitating symptoms.
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine said that a pilot study of 40 people, half of whom were healthy and one on the syndrome, showed that their Potential biomarker test correctly identified sick people.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or MS, is estimated to affect approximately 2.5 million people in the United States and 17 million worldwide.
Symptoms include extreme fatigue, joint pain, headaches, and sleep problems. No cause or diagnosis has yet been established and the disease can make patients incarcerated or forced to stay in bed for years.
The research, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed blood samples taken from test volunteers with the help of a "nanoelectronic test" – a test measuring the variations of very small amounts of energy as indicators of the health of blood plasma immune cells.
The scientists "stressed" the blood samples with salt and then compared the responses. The results, they said, showed that all blood samples from CFS patients created a sharp peak, while those from healthy controls remained relatively stable.
"We do not know exactly why cells and plasma are doing this, or even what they do," said Ron Davis, professor of biochemistry and genetics who co-directed the study.
"(But) we clearly see a difference in how immune cells with chronic and healthy fatigue syndrome treat stress."
Other experts not directly involved in this work, however, warned that his results showed that there was still much to be done before finding a biomarker capable of establishing a diagnosis of CFS and distinguishing it from 39 other conditions with similar symptoms.
Simon Wessely, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatric Psychiatry and Neuroscience at King's College in London, who has been working for many years with patients with CFS, said this study was the last from a long series of attempts to find a biomarker for the SFC, but had two key questions:
"The (first) problem is whether a biomarker can distinguish patients with CFS from those with other strenuous diseases. And second, does it measure the cause and not the consequence of the disease? ", He said in a comment sent by email. "This study provides no evidence that one or the other has finally been achieved."
Andrew Lloyd, professor of infectious disease medicine at the School of Medical Sciences at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, said it was premature to draw general conclusions about the results of the study. # 39; study.
"It is very premature to think that this could constitute a" diagnostic biomarker for ME / CFS "because the size of the patient sample included only 20 patients (and 20 control subjects in good condition). health). That's very little for the validation of a new diagnostic test, "Lloyd said.
Wessely also noted that the results of the study should not disillusion doctors and patients.
"You do not need a blood test to prove that an illness exists, and the absence of such a test does not mean that it is" all in the mind. "
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