Anti-inflammatory biologic offered no meaningful decrease in fatigue severity
TUESDAY, March 7, 2017 (HealthDay News) — The anti-inflammatory biologic drug anakinra (Kineret) does not reduce fatigue severity in women with chronic fatigue syndrome, according to a study published online March 7 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
To test anakinra’s potential as a treatment, Megan E. Roerink, M.D., of the Radboud University Medical Centre in Nijmegen, Netherlands, and colleagues randomly assigned 25 women with chronic fatigue syndrome to receive daily 100-mg injections of the drug. Another 25 women received a placebo.
After one month, the researchers saw no meaningful difference between the two groups in fatigue severity. Other symptoms — including pain, distress, and physical and social functioning — were not appreciably different, either.
“Peripheral interleukin-1 inhibition using anakinra for four weeks does not result in a clinically significant reduction in fatigue severity in women with chronic fatigue syndrome and severe fatigue,” the authors write.
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