Metabolic fingerprinting for diagnosis of fibromyalgia and other rheumatologic disorders (2018) Hackshaw et al.

Very interesting! Could they be holding back the identity of specifics because of a possible patent on a diagnostic test kit in the future? Or too soon for that...probably.

 

From the discussion section of the paper:

"This study assessed the feasibility of vibrational spectroscopy to differentiate individuals with FM from those with several other rheumatic conditions including RA, SLE, and OA.

In addition, we wanted to determine if various degrees of severity of FM were biochemically distinguishable from each other using a novel means of rapid detection. Advantages of such a methodology, if developed and honed to reproducibility, would be a capability for identifying specific treatment subsets for FM as well as identifying new targets as differentiated from each other metabolically by spectroscopy (UV-vis, MS, and vibrational).

The results of the study found a unique Raman spectral signature that clustered all subjects into classes (FM, RA, and SLE) with no misclassifications. The discriminating power was dominated by vibrations of the backbone in proteins and nucleic acids, and also indicated mineral differences in blood as biomarker."

Does anyone know anything about vibrational spectroscopy? Is this a real thing?

The methods section seems kinda complicated.

 

I don't have any more information, and can't answer the question asked by @Snowdrop - but I thought I'd post a link to a news article about this paper just in it has any helpful information.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190318084127.htm

I thought this was a good sign (so many researchers seem to want to skip this step):

I have two different friends with a Fibromyalgia diagnosis. I'd be interested in whether this study looks promising before I pass on the news to them.

 

Isn’t this study similar to

A new approach to find biomarkers in (CFS/ME) by single-cell Raman micro-spectroscopy, 2018, Morten et al
https://www.s4me.info/threads/a-new...an-micro-spectroscopy-2018-morten-et-al.5445/

 

article in Ohio State University news
Experimental blood test accurately spots fibromyalgia
Study finds unique ‘molecular signature’ for often-misdiagnosed disease

https://news.osu.edu/experimental-b...Nqb4CBlYYKx8cShnorR8ihprQv_WmrbJ95vaGqP341VBY

 

Updating link to paper from its early access URL —

https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(20)40006-7/fulltext