“Many of these symptoms can be explained by circulating immune system molecules described by Montoya and colleagues in this paper, as well as by others who have reported similar findings,” Lipkin, who wasn’t involved in the study, says by email.
The development of a biomarker, such as a diagnostic blood test, for chronic fatigue syndrome would be a major advance in understanding the condition and treating it, said Dr. Shaheen Lakhan, a neurology researcher at California University of Science and Medicine in San Bernardino who wasn’t involved in the study.
“We currently do not have such a test,” Lakhan says. “Not only will it permit objective diagnosis, it may guide new drug development and be used to monitor disease activity and responsiveness to treatments.”
Reference
- Montoya JG, Holmes TH, Anderson JN, et al. Cytokine signature associated with disease severity in chronic fatigue syndrome patients. PNAS. 2017 Jul 31. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1710519114.
