Crosby, L D, Kalanidhi, S, Bonilla, A et al. · Journal of translational medicine · 2021 · DOI
This study looked back at medical records of 101 ME/CFS patients who were prescribed a low dose of aripiprazole, a medication typically used for other conditions. The researchers found that some patients reported improvements in their symptoms. While these results are encouraging, the study design means we need to be cautious about how much weight to give these findings.
ME/CFS lacks FDA-approved treatments and patients often struggle with debilitating fatigue and post-exertional malaise. Any potential therapeutic avenue warrants investigation, and this study suggests aripiprazole may deserve further scrutiny in rigorous clinical trials to determine if it could help some patients.
This study does not prove that aripiprazole causes symptom improvement in ME/CFS patients. It is observational without a control group, so improvements could be due to placebo effect, natural disease fluctuation, concurrent treatments, or other unmeasured factors. Larger, randomized controlled trials would be needed to establish true efficacy.
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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