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A A new device could provide an effective way to diagnose myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. Sufferers have symptoms such as fatigue, abnormal sleep and pain, but it is notoriously difficult to diagnose.
Ron Davis from Stanford came up with the idea for the device in 2015 while attending an event at the Institute of Medicine where the jury members debated whether the disease was real, or not. he called back.
But he knew that it was real. His son, then about twenty years old, had been living with the disease for almost two years. It is estimated that the EM / CFS affects 2.5 million Americans, but the actual numbers are not known because more than 80% of people with the disease have no diagnosis, according to the MEAction defense group. Davis's own son had led nearly five years of struggle to obtain his own diagnosis of the disease.
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"He was considered a psychosomatic illness," said Davis, a biochemist and geneticist. "When doctors do their usual measurements, these patients are normal. But they do not measure enough things. "
Davis and other scientists from Stanford and the University of California, Irvine, have now created a device that can greatly simplify the diagnosis of ME / CFS. The research was published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Nicknamed "nanoneedle", the new device detects some changes in electrical signals to identify people with ME / CFS.
"This is an important discovery because it demonstrates a biological difference between people with ME / CFS and healthy people," said Maureen Hanson, a molecular biologist at Cornell University, who was not involved in the study. research. "There are still people who still do not believe that the disease is a real biological disease rather than a mental problem."
The small device created by Davis and his colleagues was originally designed to detect changes in electrical signals when cancer cells were exposed to different treatments. They then decided to try it with samples of patients with ME / CFS. Previous research conducted by other researchers had suggested that the disease resulted in faster energy consumption of cells and more difficult recovery time after illness or other stressors.
The researchers therefore decided to imitate this by focusing on healthy control cells and 20 patients with ME / CFS by exposing them to an increase in salt levels.
"We force them to consume [energy] and they are not happy in this new environment, "said Rahim Esfandyarpour, a bioengineering engineer at the University of California, Irvine, and the lead author of the study. "When they face this new environment, their reaction is different from that of healthy cells."
The cells of those with ME / CFS showed a marked increase in the number of electrical signals, indicating an increased stress response. In contrast, control group samples were fairly uniform. Davis said that he was surprised that there was such a delimitation between the two groups.
"It was a very, very clear signal. Healthy cells had no signal, "Davis said.
Previous attempts to distinguish between ME / CFS samples had almost always resulted in some overlap with sound controls, said Hanson. In her own work studying the intestinal microbiome, she was able to show that the microbiota in people with ME / CFS was on average different, but there were still some commonalities with healthy people. And while the current study focuses only on a small population, "it's still impressive that there is this complete discrimination," said Hanson.
The researchers do not yet know what explains the gap between the two groups. What is also difficult to determine is whether the difference is specific to ME / CFS or whether other autoimmune diseases would also cause similar electrical signal spikes.
"I think the next thing they need to do is test a lot more patients and compare a lot of other illnesses – like MS – to make sure what they see." is really because of EM / CFS, "said Brian Vastag, a former Washington Post reporter who spoke candidly about his life experience with ME / CFS.
Davis and Esfandyarpour have already planned to do so and are also considering using the device to test new potential drugs for the disease, which currently has no treatment approved by the Food and Drug Administration. "A diagnostic test is probably the biggest thing that can happen to patients right now," Vastag said. "The treatment would be huge, but most patients are still waiting years to get a diagnosis."
For patients like Vastag and their family members like Davis and Hanson – whose adult son is also afflicted with EM / CFS – even the possibility of a diagnosis is promising. Although he can not help Davis's son, who is now bedridden, unable to speak and relying on a food probe because of his ME / CFS, the new device "Offers a tiny bit of hope as opposed to none, which has been the case for 30 years," he said.
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