ArticleHealthcare (Basel, Switzerland)2021
A Comprehensive Examination of Severely Ill ME/CFS Patients.
Article in Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Health-related quality of life in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Post COVID-19 Condition: a systematic review.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Pooled it
- An Overview of Severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Algorithm dependence of patient phenotypes in Long COVID: a patient-led, multi-method clustering of 6031 patients using 162 self-reported symptoms.Oxford open immunology · 2026Article
- Mapping the complexity of ME/CFS: Evidence for abnormal energy metabolism, altered immune profile, and vascular dysfunction.Cell reports. Medicine · 2025Article
- Virus Genome Sequences in the Blood of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Patients.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Steroid dynamics in myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome: a case-control study using ultra performance supercritical fluid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Article
- Oxidative stress is a shared characteristic of ME/CFS and Long COVID.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- A network medicine approach to investigating ME/CFS pathogenesis in severely ill patients: a pilot study.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Core features and inherent diversity of post-acute infection syndromes.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- A pilot cross-sectional investigation of symptom clusters and associations with patient-reported outcomes in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Post COVID-19 Condition.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2024Article
- Translating insights into therapies for Long Covid.Science translational medicine · 2024Review
- Sex and disease severity-based analysis of steroid hormones in ME/CFS.Journal of endocrinological investigation · 2024Article
- Illness presentation and quality of life in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and post COVID-19 condition: a pilot Australian cross-sectional study.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2024Article
- Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Impact on Quality of Life (QoL) of Persons with ME/CFS.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Article
- Hair cortisol and self-perceived stress in adolescents with multi-system functional somatic disorders.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Mixed methods system for the assessment of post-exertional malaise in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: an exploratory study.BMJ neurology open · 2024Article
- Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: the biology of a neglected disease.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Review
- Associations between physical activity, long COVID symptom intensity, and perceived health among individuals with long COVID.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Acquiring a new understanding of illness and agency: a narrative study of recovering from chronic fatigue syndrome.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2023Article
- Severe and Very Severe Myalgic Encephalopathy/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome ME/CFS in Norway: Symptom Burden and Access to Care.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
One in four myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) patients are estimated to be severely affected by the disease, and these house-bound or bedbound patients are currently understudied. Here, we report a comprehensive examination of the symptoms and clinical laboratory tests of a cohort of severely ill patients and healthy controls. The greatly reduced quality of life of the patients was negatively correlated with clinical depression. The most troublesome symptoms included fatigue (85%), pain (65%), cognitive impairment (50%), orthostatic intolerance (45%), sleep disturbance (35%), post-exertional malaise (30%), and neurosensory disturbance (30%). Sleep profiles and cognitive tests revealed distinctive impairments. Lower morning cortisol level and alterations in its diurnal rhythm were observed in the patients, and antibody and antigen measurements showed no evidence for acute infections by common viral or bacterial pathogens. These results highlight the urgent need of developing molecular diagnostic tests for ME/CFS. In addition, there was a striking similarity in symptoms between long COVID and ME/CFS, suggesting that studies on the mechanism and treatment of ME/CFS may help prevent and treat long COVID and vice versa.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.