title: Treatment of 741 Italian patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a distinctive syndrome characterized by specific symptoms cluster. CFS mostly affects women and often results in severe functional limitation. Its prevalence varies from 0.4 to 2.5% in the general population. In our prior studies on the clinical features of 205 CFS patients we founded immunological and brain abnormalities. In this paper we illustrate our caseload on CFS treatment.
  
  
  METHODS
  From January 2000 to December 2005, we evaluated all the patients admitted at the CFS Unit of the Aviano National Cancer Institute, for staging procedures and treatments. Patients not meeting the Fukuda diagnostic criteria were excluded.
  
  
  RESULTS
  250 male and 491 female (median age 35.5 and 39.3 years, respectively) were enrolled and treated for CFS. As expected, CFS resulted from previous infectious disease in all patients. Female patients showed to be more affected by symptoms than male patients. The treatment schedules followed by the patients included nutritional supplements alone, corticosteroids, antidepressant/sedative drugs, and antiviral/immunoglobulin drugs. Antiviral/ immunoglobulin drugs achieved the best response (15.3% positive responses vs. 8.3% negative responses; OR 0.44, CI 0.26-0.74, p = 0.002). The carrying out of 4 or more treatments showed a protective effect (OR 0.46, CI 0.28-0.77, p = 0.003). This finding was confirmed in the multivariate analysis, adjusted by type of drugs (OR 0.49, CI 0.28-0.84, p = 0.009) and number of treatments carried out (OR 0.51, CI 0.30-0.86, p = 0.01); these two variables were independent.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings show that the antiviral/immunoglobulin approach has a longer positive disease free survival in comparison with other approaches. However, CSF still remains a difficult disease to be effectively treated.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Division of Medical Oncology A, National Cancer Institute of Aviano, Pordenone, Italy. oma@cro.it  
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Tirelli
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lleshi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Berretta
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Spina
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Talamini
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Giacalone
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000998:Antiviral Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D015673:Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007136:Immunoglobulins / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D007155:Immunologic Factors / Q000627:therapeutic use; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012737:Sex Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D000998:Antiviral Agents; D007136:Immunoglobulins; D007155:Immunologic Factors