A virus linked to prostate cancer also appears to play a role in chronic fatigue syndrome, according to research that could lead to the first drug treatments for a mysterious disorder that affects 17 million people worldwide, according to AP. Researchers found the virus, known as XMRV, in the blood of 68 out of 101 chronic fatigue syndrome patients. The same virus showed up in only 8 of 218 healthy people, they reported on Thursday in the journal Science. Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Nevada and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute and the Cleveland Clinic emphasized that the finding only shows a link between the virus and chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS, and does not prove that the pathogen causes the disorder. Much more study would be necessary to show a direct link, but Mikovits said the study offers hope that CFS sufferers might gain relief from a cocktail of drugs designed to fight AIDS, cancer and inflammation. "You can imagine a number of combination therapies that could be quite effective and could at least be used in clinical trials right away," Mikovits said in a telephone interview. She said AIDS drugs such as non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and integrase inhibitors as well as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and cancer-fighting proteasome inhibitors could be tested as potential treatments for CFS. Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd makes a cancer drug called Velcade that is a proteasome inhibitor, although there are no reports that it has been tested against XMRV.
