Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease: Three Distinct Clinical Entities; 2018; Twisk

Note that if the 2015 Institute of Medicine report recommendations are followed, then "SEID" criteria may change less than 2 years from now.
IOM report said:
Recommendation 3

A multidisciplinary group should reexamine the diagnostic criteria set forth in this report when firm evidence supports modification to improve the identification or care of affected individuals.

Such a group should consider, in no more than 5 years, whether modification of the criteria is necessary.

http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/~/media/Files/Report Files/2015/MECFS/MECFS_Powerpoint.pdf
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Not referring the Twisk paper here, but using SEID criteria for any medical study is a really bad idea. It's not just difficult to compare an SEID study to a ICC/CCC/Fukuda etc. study, you can't even compare SEID to SEID if it changes after 5 years.
 
Abstract
Many researchers consider chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) to be a synonym of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). However, the case criteria of ME and CFS define two distinct clinical entities. Although some patients will meet both case criteria, other patients can meet the diagnosis of ME and not fulfil the case criteria for CFS, while the diagnosis of CFS is largely insufficient to be qualified as a ME patient.

ME is a neuromuscular disease with distinctive muscular symptoms, including prolonged muscle weakness after exertion, and neurological signs implicating cerebral dysfunction, including cognitive impairment and sensory symptoms. The only mandatory symptom of CFS is chronic fatigue. Chronic fatigue must be accompanied by at least four out of eight nonspecific symptoms: substantial impairment in short-term memory or concentration, a sore throat, tender lymph nodes, muscle pain, multijoint pain, a new type of headaches, unrefreshing sleep, and postexertional “malaise” lasting more than 24 h. So, regardless whether the name ME is appropriate or not, ME is not synonymous to CFS. That is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of definition.

Due to the definitions of ME and CFS, “ME/CFS” does not exist and cannot be replaced by a new clinical entity (SEID: Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease), as recently suggested.
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Full text open access at http://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/9/1/19/htm
 
TigerLilea said:
Until we have some form of testing available, I don't think that anyone can know if they are the same or not. If what this article says is correct, then I'd guess that at least half of us don't belong here on S4ME.
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I think that when the truth is eventually discovered, there will (as many people believe) be various subsets with what we currently know as ME/CFS. As I see it (my personal view), the people who belong in S4ME are those who fit within the overall understanding we have of what ME/CFS means to people today, with today's best understanding of that. And just because good science might in future sub-classify within that, I do not that see any reason at all for some members to suddenly feel like they would not belong - far from it. We are quite literally all in this together.
 
The picture ("Venn diagram") he shows is actually what I meant in another thread where I thought about sets and subsets. My claim was that ME is not a subset of CFS but that ME and CFS may have an intersection set. I didn't include SEID though. I wonder if we can really answer the question whether this intersection is empty or non-empty.

I find this paper interesting and important.
 
TigerLilea said:
If what this article says is correct, then I'd guess that at least half of us don't belong here on S4ME.
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I agree that some of us probably won't fit the criteria for ME as described and defined in this paper, but this forum is for everyone - ME, CFS, SEID, and anyone else who thinks they might have any of these. But I guess you knew that really!

Roll on the day when we have biomedical tests and treatments for all us them and don't need to discuss endlessly about definitions. :)
 
So, regardless whether the name ME is appropriate or not, ME is not synonymous to CFS.

[earlier]
Although some patients will meet both case criteria...
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So, they're not the same, except when they are. The definitions are different but not mutually exclusive.

Post exertional malaise, for example, may fulfill a requirement for the 1994 CFS definition, but it is not mentioned in Ramsay's 1990 ME definition. I have to wonder when the term post-exertional malaise was first used in the literature. I wouldn't be surprised if it originated in the 1994 CFS definition paper. I didn't hear about it until more than a decade later.

If a future definition requires an abnormal 2-day CPET are we going to say that that definition represents a completely different disease from ME and CFS because their older case definitions didn't require that test?
 
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I think Twist has got this in a muddle.

Reiter's syndrome and reactive arthritis are defined differently and have some overlap and some not. But a doctor would not say they are distinct clinical entities. They would say there is a spectrum and that the most typical cases fit both definitions. That would be the way I see ME.

The fact that definitions are not the same does not mean that what they are trying to describe are separate entities. It just means that the definitions are different.
 
I find it an interesting exercise, but are we really any the wiser?

It's a bit like asking three people to describe an animal's key features. One says it has an elongated nose as it's defining feature, another a bulky body, and the third big flappy ears, each listing several other features as secondary.

You then draw a lovely Venn diagram showing they are not the same animal on the basis of those definitions, but they have some overlapping features.

You still don't know if all three are describing an elephant, or they are actually an elephant, a rhino and Prince Charles.
 
Forbin said:
Post exertional malaise, for example, may fulfill a requirement for the 1994 CFS definition, but it is not mentioned in Ramsay's 1990 ME definition.
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Actually, it does here

"(2) Neurological disturbance – an unpredictable state of central nervous system exhaustion following mental or physical exertion which may be delayed and require several days for recovery; an unique neuro-endocrine profile which differs from depression in that the hypothalamic/pituitary/adrenal response to stress is deficient; dysfunction of the autonomic and sensory nervous systems; cognitive problems."
 
Ramsay did not talk about PEM but he did talk about an abnormal reaction to exercise. Describing the Royal Free epidemic they said that even examining patients made them sicker.

There were a lot of things implicit about ME, we all seemed to be talking about the same thing in the days before CFS was invented. Getting worse with exercise was felt to be the most important thing about ME with mental exertion causing physical fatigue and vice versa.

It is really hard for people today to understand how CFS turned everything upside down. ME came in epidemics so it was obvious that an infection was involved, even if that infection had been subclinical. Then there was the variability of symptoms so that you could be unable to talk in the morning, have excruciating muscle pain in the afternoon and be blind in the evening (as I have had) - we have now gotten PEM acknowledged again but the variability has still not returned for research.

It became all about fatigue, a minor consideration with ME in the old days where it was treated in the it is with MS. In fact, rather than 6 months of unexplained fatigue the typical ME patient was said to be fairly normal for a few months, then having a collapse for a while, then recovering, more variability. (Of course, 25% were said to recover and 25% to keep getting worse).

I have NEVER fit the criteria for CFS. It may be that no one gets ME anymore or that ME is an energy production disease that is just one of many but making it all about fatigue has really screwed everything up.

Much better description Mij :)
 
Mij said:
Actually, it does here

"(2) Neurological disturbance – an unpredictable state of central nervous system exhaustion following mental or physical exertion which may be delayed and require several days for recovery; an unique neuro-endocrine profile which differs from depression in that the hypothalamic/pituitary/adrenal response to stress is deficient; dysfunction of the autonomic and sensory nervous systems; cognitive problems."
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Good find! I was going by the 1990 Ramsay paper cited by Twisk. It mentions "a complaint of general or local muscular fatigue following minimal exertion with prolonged recovery time," but doesn't mention other post-exertional symptoms that one might associate with PEM. It also doesn't mention the onset being delayed in some cases. It's interesting that Ramsay's 1986 definition does, however.


The term "postexertional malaise" does appear in the 1994 CFS definition cited in the Twisk paper.

The chronic fatigue syndrome: A comprehensive approach to its definition and study. Ann. Intern. Med. 1994, 121, 953–959.
Fukuda, K.; Straus, S.E.; Hickie, I.; Sharpe, M.; Dobbins, J.G.; Komaroff, A.L.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.325.4042&rep=rep1&type=pdf
 
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Forbin said:
If a future definition requires an abnormal 2-day CPET are we going to say that that definition represents a completely different disease from ME and CFS because their older case definitions didn't require that test?
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That's just it. The case definitions are important because we don't have a biomarker. And PEM is important even if it was not in the first case defintion describing ME. ICC did not exist then but most agree it most correctly defines ME. I have been diagnosed with CFS and I believe I first met SEID (even though SEID did not exist in late 70') and my disease progressed in severity and symptoms through the years and I now believe I meet CCC.

It would not surprise me that there are types and ME may very well be its own disease while CFS and SEID are more alike and it may be a severity issue with them. But I also believe ME and CFS lie on a spectrum.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
I think Twist has got this in a muddle.

The fact that definitions are not the same does not mean that what they are trying to describe are separate entities. It just means that the definitions are different.
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Yes I agree. This paper upset me probably more than it should have. I do think it is a useful exercise to compare definitions and see what kind of cohort they lead to, but the conclusions in this paper are misplaced. Until biomedical tests can differentiate subsets patients will be harmed by trying to include or exclude on the basis of arbitrary definitions. Added to that is that patients are stuck with the diagnosis their country prefers to use regardless of the criteria used to diagnose.
 
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