Study Isolates Virus in Chronic Fatigue Sufferers
Discovery a major step toward treatment options
By David Morgan
Thursday, Oct. 8 (Reuters) - A virus linked to prostate cancer also
appears to play a role in chronic fatigue syndrome, according to research that
could lead to the first drug treatments for a mysterious disorder that affects
17 million people worldwide.
Researchers found the virus, known as XMRV, in the blood of 68 out of 101
chronic fatigue syndrome patients. The same virus showed up in only 8 of 218
healthy people, they reported on Thursday in the journal Science.
Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Nevada and colleagues
at the National Cancer Institute and the Cleveland Clinic emphasized that the
finding only shows a link between the virus and chronic fatigue syndrome, or
CFS, and does not prove that the pathogen causes the disorder.
Much more study would be necessary to show a direct link, but Mikovits said
the study offers hope that CFS sufferers might gain relief from a cocktail of
drugs designed to fight AIDS, cancer and inflammation.
"You can imagine a number of combination therapies that could be quite
effective and could at least be used in clinical trials right away," Mikovits
said in a telephone interview.
She said AIDS drugs such as non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors
and integrase inhibitors as well as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and
cancer-fighting proteasome inhibitors could be tested as potential treatments
for CFS.
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd makes a cancer drug called Velcade that is a
proteasome inhibitor, although there are no reports that it has been tested
against XMRV.
INCAPACITATING FATIGUE
CFS impairs the immune system and causes incapacitating fatigue, according to
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sufferers can also
experience memory loss, problems with concentration, joint and muscle pain,
headaches, tender lymph nodes and sore throats.
Symptoms last at least six months and can be as disabling as multiple
sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis, the CDC said.
But Mikovits said there is currently no treatment for CFS aside from
cognitive behavioral therapy to help patients cope with the disorder's crippling
effects.
The XMRV virus is a retrovirus, like the HIV virus that causes AIDS. As with
all viruses, a retrovirus copies its genetic code into the DNA of its host but
uses RNA -- a working form of DNA -- instead of using DNA to do so.
Known formally as xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, XMRV has
also been found in some prostate tumors and is also known to cause leukemia and
tumors in animals.
Mikovits' team said further research must now determine whether XMRV directly
causes CFS, is just a passenger virus in the suppressed immune systems of
sufferers or a pathogen that acts in concert with other viruses that have been
implicated in the disorder by previous research.
"Conceivably these viruses could be co-factors in pathogenesis, as is the
case for HIV-mediated disease, where co-infecting pathogens play an important
role," the report said.
Because 3.7 percent of the healthy test population tested positive for XMRV,
the researchers said several million otherwise healthy people in the United
States could be infected with it.
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