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Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

med.stanford.edu

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Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#21

Post by ufo »

gwern wrote: post #16
danieltillett wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree with you here - the separation is too good. You just never get anything in the real world that works this well with complex diseases.

It is suspicious but look at the scatterplots: https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2019/04/24/190127411... It really is pretty much perfect separation on their metric. When the effect size is that large...

One thing that would be interesting to investigate in the future would be to see how the test behaves for CFS patients who are not as severely ill, or for non-CFS patients that are currently ill from a different disease.

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#22

Post by mirekrusin »

gwern wrote: post #16
danieltillett wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree with you here - the separation is too good. You just never get anything in the real world that works this well with complex diseases.

It is suspicious but look at the scatterplots: https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2019/04/24/190127411... It really is pretty much perfect separation on their metric. When the effect size is that large...

Exacly, just sorting it would show it better, it feels like it should just output percentage with (arbitrary/based on population %age/whatever) threshold that is outside of the test.

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#23

Post by erentz »

Smaug123 wrote: post #2

Paper at https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2019/04/24/190127411... Pleasantly surprised to discover that it was legally available! The test appears to be ridiculously good. Perfect separation of 40 subjects into those who have been diagnosed with CFS and those who are known to be healthy, from blood samples. I want to see this replicated, by people who are not the original authors; but if this test is anything…

I’m also very interested in seeing how strong the effect is when tested on mild and moderately ill patients. I hope they follow up with that. (The study group OMF have been using has been 20 severely sick patients, which is a good plate to start.)

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#25

Post by daedalus_f »

This looks very promising, but it’s too early to say how accurate this test truly will be. Even if this papers methodology is replicated and the test again perfectly selects ME/CFS from healthy controls, it may perform terribly when used in a real clinical setting where the test has to distinguish CFS from the spectrum of other disorders that it will encounter.

In other words while the current paper suggests the tests sensitivity is likely to be high it’s much harder to come to any conclusion about it’s real world specificity.

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#28

Post by rjsw »

rfugger wrote: post #8
danieltillett wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree with you here - the separation is too good. You just never get anything in the real world that works this well with complex diseases.

This is true, but everything is complex only up to the point when you begin to understand it. Scurvy was a complex disease until the discovery that it was cured and prevented by citrus fruit(1). Now we have the technology to skip right to the discovery of vitamin C, a miraculous 100% accurate test for scurvy. I know I'm oversimplifying, but I think the point is valid. This is why discovery of a biomarker is so crucia…

Maybe link to the original blog article [1], your link is just a summary.

[1] http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#29

Post by kurthr »

danieltillett wrote: post #3
Smaug123 wrote: post #2

Paper at https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2019/04/24/190127411... Pleasantly surprised to discover that it was legally available! The test appears to be ridiculously good. Perfect separation of 40 subjects into those who have been diagnosed with CFS and those who are known to be healthy, from blood samples. I want to see this replicated, by people who are not the original authors; but if this test is anything…

I have to agree with you here - the separation is too good. You just never get anything in the real world that works this well with complex diseases.

AIDS was once considered a very complex disease, but it has a very accurate (HIV) test today. My big concern would be if, like cancer, there are really many diseases and Chronic Fatigue symptoms are common, not differentiating.

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#30

Post by colordrops »

jaxgeller wrote: post #12

If you are living with CFS i recommend giving https://cfsremission.com/ a look.

Crazy, I basically self diagnosed myself with CFS and got rid of my symptoms over time by discovering most of the recommendations on this page myself. I figured it had something to do with a funky immune system and gut bacteria, and changed my diet and took supplements and probiotics, and it's mostly gone. I even take bacopa, wild. This is really heartening to see that I was on the right track. My wife thinks I'm a hypochondriac with a bunch of placebos.
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