Archard, L C, Bowles, N E, Behan, P O et al. · Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 1988 · DOI
Researchers looked for traces of enterovirus (a common virus) in muscle tissue from 96 ME/CFS patients who had been ill for up to 20 years. They found viral genetic material in muscle samples from about 20% of patients, but not in healthy controls. This suggests that in some people, the virus may persist in muscles long after the initial infection and could play a role in causing the disease.
This landmark study provides molecular evidence that enteroviral persistence in muscle tissue may contribute to ME/CFS pathogenesis in at least a subset of patients. Finding persistent viral RNA decades after illness onset challenged the prevailing assumption that postvirally induced fatigue syndrome was purely functional and opened investigative pathways into chronic viral sequelae.
This study does not prove that enterovirus causes ME/CFS in all patients, since 80% of biopsied patients were enterovirus-negative. It does not establish whether the detected RNA represents active, replicating virus or inactive viral fragments. The study cannot explain why some people develop persistent infection while others clear the virus, nor does it demonstrate the mechanism by which persistent virus causes fatigue symptoms.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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