News Finding: Even before treatment started, levels of interleukin-10 were higher among the 18 patients who later developed long-term fatigue, suggesting the immune system may have been primed to overreact, the study authors explained.
Paper Finding: Our study confirms and extends findings from previous longitudinal studies of post-infective fatigue syndrome, which have observed greater fatigue at initial presentation to clinics, around four weeks post-infection, in those who would go on to experience persistent fatigue VollmerConna et al., 2007) .
News Context: Those 18 patients had a much stronger immune response during treatment with interferon-alpha, with a doubling in the levels of immune system messenger molecules called interleukin-10 and interleukin-6, according to the report. Even before treatment started, levels of interleukin-10 were higher among the 18 patients who later developed long-term fatigue, suggesting the immune system may have been primed to overreact, the study authors explained. Yet, there was no difference before treatments between the groups in their levels of fatigue or in psychiatric symptoms, like depression or recent stressful events, the scientists noted.
Paper Context: Of note, PF is not due to worse recovery from the effects of IFN-α treatment per se, since the changes in clinical symptoms over the sixmonths post-treatment reveal a similar rate of recovery in both the PF and the RF groups. Our study confirms and extends findings from previous longitudinal studies of post-infective fatigue syndrome, which have observed greater fatigue at initial presentation to clinics, around four weeks post-infection, in those who would go on to experience persistent fatigue VollmerConna et al., 2007) . Interestingly, by adding a 'baseline' assessment before IFN-α (i.e., equivalent to a hitherto unavailable fatigue measurement before the infection), our study shows that pre-treatment levels of fatigue are not a good predictor of the development of CFS in response to an immune challenge.