Commercial Laboratory Testing for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- David P. Dooley, MD
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
To the Editor. —We recently received a mailing from a wellknown national laboratory that advertises a panel of tests designed to aid in the diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).1 This flier describes the various immune abnormalities that frequently accompany CFS, then noncommittally suggests that the advertised battery of tests "is useful for detecting defects in natural immunity....[T]he [battery] includes the best documented indicators, ie, EBV (EA, VCA) and HHV-6 antibodies." Subsets of T cells are included in the battery and natural killer cell function will soon be additionally available.
The point of providing this panel of diagnostics eludes me, if other than to create a market where there is none. The diagnostic or prognostic significance of any immune or serologic abnormality, or constellation thereof, is unknown in CFS.2-4
Chronic fatigue syndrome probably has multiple causes, with fatigue being a final common manifestation2; it is unknown whether
