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Unique immunologic patterns in fibromyalgia

Ecoclimber

Ecoclimber

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Unique immunologic patterns in fibromyalgia

Frederick G Behm1, Igor M Gavin2, Oleksiy Karpenko2, Valerie Lindgren1, Sujata Gaitonde1, Peter A Gashkoff1 and Bruce S Gillis1*
Author Affiliations
1 Department of Pathology, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Chicago, IL, USA
2 Research Resource Center, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
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BMC Clinical Pathology 2012, 12:25 doi:10.1186/1472-6890-12-25

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6890/12/25

Received: 8 July 2012
Accepted: 10 December 2012
Published: 17 December 2012

© 2012 Behm et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract

Background

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a clinical syndrome characterized by chronic pain and allodynia. The diagnosis of FM has been one of exclusion as a test to confirm the diagnosis is lacking. Recent data highlight the role of the immune system in FM. Aberrant expressions of immune mediators, such as cytokines, have been linked to the pathogenesis and traits of FM. We therefore determined whether cytokine production by immune cells is altered in FM patients by comparing the cellular responses to mitogenic activators of stimulated blood mononuclear cells of a large number of patients with FM to those of healthy matched individuals.


Methods

Plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were collected from 110 patients with the clinical diagnosis of FM and 91 healthy donors. Parallel samples of PBMC were cultured overnight in medium alone or in the presence of mitogenic activators; PHA or PMA in combination with ionomycin. The cytokine concentrations of IFN-γ, IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, MIP-1β , MCP-1, and MIP1-α in plasma as well as in cultured supernatants were determined using a multiplex immunoassay using bead array technology.


Results

Cytokine levels of stimulated PBMC cultures of healthy control subjects were significantly increased as compared to matched non-stimulated PBMC cultures. In contrast, the concentrations of most cytokines were lower in stimulated samples from patients with FM compared to controls. The decreases of cytokine concentrations in patients samples ranged from 1.5-fold for MIP-1β to 10.2-fold for IL-6 in PHA challenges. In PMA challenges, we observed 1.8 to 4-fold decreases in the concentrations of cytokines in patient samples.


Conclusion

The cytokine responses to mitogenic activators of PBMC isolated from patients with FM were significantly lower than those of healthy individuals, implying that cell-mediated immunity is impaired in FM patients. This novel cytokine assay reveals unique and valuable immunologic traits, which, when combined with clinical patterns, can offer a diagnostic methodology in FM.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6890/12/25
 
Shell

Shell

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Interesting stuff. Leaves me wondering if my shoddy immunity is FM related rather than ME - or whether I just have to accept it's all part of the disease stew running amok in my bod.
 
Pyrrhus

Pyrrhus

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From another thread on the same paper:
Gijs said:
Posted: Thursday, April 18, 2013 7:44 am | Updated: 4:32 am, Fri Apr 19, 2013.
By NAPS,
North American Precis Syndicate

(NAPSI)—For decades, debate has raged over whether fibromyalgia is a real medical disease. Despite the fact that fibromyalgia affects more than 12.3 million people in the United States—comparable to the number of people affected by cancer—some clinicians believe fibromyalgia is nothing more than a “syndrome.” When patients complain of chronic pain, diffuse muscle and joint tenderness, depression, mental fog, digestive troubles, severe fatigue, insomnia and other unbearable symptoms, they’ve often been told the problem is “in their heads.”
Recently published breakthrough research conducted at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago should end the debate—and stigma faced by fibromyalgia patients—once and for all. These studies, comparing fibromyalgia patients to healthy people, confirm that fibromyalgia is an immune system disorder.

The identification of this immune system pathway was not only honored with the 2012 American Association for Clinical Chemistry’s “Outstanding Research in Clinical and Diagnostic Immunology” award; it has also led to the first objective test capable of making a diagnosis of fibromyalgia.
“What we discovered over years of research is that fibromyalgia patients have an abnormal immune system,” said Bruce S. Gillis, MD, MPH, lead researcher and founder of EpicGenetics. “These peer-reviewed results have finally been able to ‘tear back the curtain’ to reveal that fibromyalgia is an immune system dysregulation disease relating to the production of protein molecules called chemokines and cytokines by a certain type of white blood cell.”

On average, fibromyalgia patients spend 3-5 painful years seeking a diagnosis, and $4,800-$9,300 annually on associated medical costs. By comparison, The FM Test, which costs $744, is a quick, simple blood test that offers conclusive results, usually in a week or less—a fraction of the time and money currently spent by patients seeking a diagnosis.

Anyone with fibromyalgia symptoms can have his or her doctor order the test. Alternatively, patients may take a simple questionnaire at www.TheFMTest.com and utilize an FM Test physician to request a test. Those already diagnosed with fibromyalgia can take the test to confirm and establish a baseline that can be used to track treatment effectiveness.

“The FM Test represents an objective biomarker that will prove useful in the diagnosis of an enigmatic disease,” said Ernest Brahn, MD, professor of medicine, Division of Rheumatology, at the UCLA School of Medicine

http://www.exponent-telegram.com/on...cle_cb57f39b-f852-5367-88a1-ae786336cafd.html
Click to expand...
 
Pyrrhus

Pyrrhus

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From another thread on the same paper:
Valentijn said:
It's probably being grossly over-hyped for commercial reasons.

Basically they're saying that a pattern of lab results diagnoses FM, based solely on one or maybe two research papers which they have produced. This really is not even close to being a proper diagnostic test yet. Especially since it relies largely on cytokines, which tend to be all over the place in various disease with an inflammatory component.

For comparison, we've had dozens of papers showing cytokine abnormalities in ME/CFS. But they aren't nearly consistent enough to say that any specific pattern gives a firm "yes" or "no" for individual diagnosis, though they do show objective proof of biomedical dysfunction.

In addition to a lot more replication, they need to compare it to a lot of other diseases. It's not good enough to just say that it's not the same pattern as they have seen in RA or Lupus.
Click to expand...
 
Pyrrhus

Pyrrhus

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From another thread on the same paper:
Makarimo said:
I just took this fibromyalgia blood test. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia 18 years ago but was sick for years before being diagnosed. I thought my symptoms were more typical of CFIDS because I am not in chronic pain all the time but exercise crashes can be VERY severe. However, I just got my results back from EpiGenetics and I am strongly positive. Anything over 50 is positive and I came in at 83.

I enourage everyone on this forum who has insurance that will cover to ask your doctor to order this test. Medicare will pay for those who are retired and if you don’t have a doctor, EpiGenetics will have one of their own doctors order it for you. They arrange for a phlebotomist to come to your house to draw the blood sample, and the phlebotomist also overnights it to the lab.

EpiGenetics needs more men to test and also younger people. Most of the testees have been older women, like me.

They are now working with Massachusetts General Hospital to set up a clinical study and need more MEN volunteers.
Click to expand...
 
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