Treatments of chronic fatigue syndrome and its debilitating comorbidities: a 12-year population-based study, 2022, Leong et al

Abstract

Background

This study aims to provide 12-year nationwide epidemiology data to investigate the epidemiology and comorbidities of and therapeutic options for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) by analyzing the National Health Insurance Research Database.

Methods
6306 patients identified as having CFS during the 2000–2012 period and 6306 controls (with similar distributions of age and sex) were analyzed.

Result
The patients with CFS were predominantly female and aged 35–64 years in Taiwan and presented a higher proportion of depression, anxiety disorder, insomnia, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, renal disease, type 2 diabetes, gout, dyslipidemia, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren syndrome, and herpes zoster. The use of selective serotonin receptor inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), Serotonin antagonist and reuptake inhibitors (SARIs), Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), benzodiazepine (BZD), Norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitors (NDRIs), muscle relaxants, analgesic drugs, psychotherapies, and exercise therapies was prescribed significantly more frequently in the CFS cohort than in the control group.

Conclusion
This large national study shared the mainstream therapies of CFS in Taiwan, we noticed these treatments reported effective to relieve symptoms in previous studies. Furthermore, our findings indicate that clinicians should have a heightened awareness of the comorbidities of CFS, especially in psychiatric problems.

Open access, https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12967-022-03461-0

 

Interesting data point regarding incidence of CFS: 0.63% incidence over 12 years for adults. No idea how hard it is to get diagnosed in Taiwan, but it's another data point.

Also interestingly only 53% female.
Age at diagnosis 51 ± 18.
FM comorbidity 78%
Dyslipidemia 36%
T2DM 23%
Comorbidities table

 

From the paper

"Cases of CFS were identified using two outpatient records or one admission record with a diagnosis of ICD-9-CM code 780.71."

Details of that code can be seen here, http://www.icd9data.com/2015/Volume1/780-799/780-789/780/780.71.htm, but it would seem to be a diagnosis based on Fukuda criteria.