Landmark Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research

[TheTMJAssociation]

The following is from the Oct. 8, 2009 CFIDS e-newsletter:

In the October 8, 2009 issue of Scienc Express, researchers at the Whittemore-Peterson Institute (WPI), the Cleveland Clinic and the National Cancer Institute report that 67% of 101 chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients tested positive for infection with xenobiotic murine retrovirus (XMRV), a gammaretrovirus associated with a subset of prostate cancer. Only 3.7% of 218 healthy subjects tested were positive for the virus. Read the joint press release issued.

These important results provide evidence of the association of at least a subset of CFS cases with retroviruses, a hypothesis formed in the mid-1980s and pursued by several independent research groups. XMRV was recently discovered in a subset of prostate cancer patients' tumor cells and the finding by Lombardi et al may be the first documentation of XMRV infection in women.

The authors raise questions about this discovery at the end of the article, including "Is XMRV infection a causal factor in the pathogenesis of CFS or a passenger virus in the immunosuppressed CFS patient population?" This question and others warrant additional investigation and the replication of this study's findings in other patient cohorts should be a priority for the field. There is currently no commercial test available for XMRV and studies of antiviral and antiretroviral treatments must be conducted to test their efficacy against XMRV infection.