Dr Krista Clarke and colleagues at the University of Surrey, along with members of the ME/CFS Biobank team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, have recently published a review looking at potential blood-based diagnostic markers for ME/CFS.
The group is jointly funded by ME Research UK and the ME Association Ramsay Research Fund for a study investigating whether the electrical properties of white blood cells could be used to develop a diagnostic tool for ME/CFS.
Their review, published in the Journal of Translational Medicine, explores this whole field and discusses some of the properties of blood which are altered in people with ME/CFS, and which could be used to develop an accessible and non-invasive diagnostic marker.
The properties and techniques discussed include profiling immune cells, measuring the electrical properties of blood, assessing the levels of different metabolites, and measuring mitochondrial dysfunction.
The authors emphasise that for these properties to be useful as biomarkers for ME/CFS, they need to be explored in larger studies as well as in other diseases to determine whether the findings are specific to ME/CFS. It is also important to consider how practical they would be for use in a clinical setting.
The diagnosis of ME/CFS is currently based on clinical diagnostic criteria and by ruling out other conditions – “a process that often takes years with patients being misdiagnosed and receiving inappropriate and sometimes detrimental care. Without a quantitative biomarker, trivialisation, scepticism, marginalisation, and misunderstanding of ME/CFS continues.”
