Chirumbolo, Salvatore, Franzini, Marianno, Tirelli, Umberto · International immunopharmacology · 2025 · DOI
This editorial examines the similarities between ME/CFS (a long-term illness causing extreme fatigue and other symptoms) and post-COVID syndrome (long-term effects some people experience after COVID-19 infection). The authors suggest these two conditions may share common underlying biological mechanisms, even though they arise from different infections. Understanding these connections could help doctors better recognize and treat both conditions.
This perspective is important because it highlights potential shared biological pathways between ME/CFS and post-COVID, which could accelerate development of diagnostic tools and treatments applicable to both patient populations. The comparison may help legitimize ME/CFS research by contextualizing it within the more recently recognized post-COVID syndrome, potentially increasing research funding and clinical attention.
This editorial does not provide new experimental evidence, original data analysis, or definitive proof of causation between viral infections and these syndromes. It cannot establish which specific mechanisms are truly shared versus coincidentally similar, and does not determine whether proposed biological mechanisms actually drive symptom development in patients.
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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