Fibromyalgia Resource

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Brautbar A, Elstein D, Pines B, Krienen N, Hemmer J, Buskila D, Zimran A.

From the Gaucher Clinic, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem.

BACKGROUND: Patients with symptomatic Gaucher's disease sometimes have non-specific symptoms (such as general malaise with widespread musculoskeletal pains) that respond poorly to enzyme replacement treatment. These may indicate fibromyalgia syndrome; if so, other therapeutic options might be more appropriate.

AIM: To identify patients with Gaucher's disease for whom fibromyalgia-specific therapy may be therapeutic.

DESIGN: Questionnaire-based survey.

METHODS: Adult patients (n = 109) with non-neuronopathic Gaucher's disease and adult healthy controls (n = 108) completed health-related questionnaires including the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire, and underwent testing with a dolorimeter to ascertain sensitivity at 22 tender points.

RESULTS: Six patients, but no controls, met the criteria for fibromyalgia. Patients with fibromyalgia had a significantly greater incidence of co-morbidities (p = 0.014) relative to other patients with Gaucher's disease; four suffered from bone involvement and were receiving enzyme therapy, but two were untreated.

DISCUSSION: The presence of fibromyalgia-specific trigger points may result from multiple aetiologies, or may be an independently-sorting predisposition. Our findings cannot distinguish between these possibilities, but if fibromyalgia were the cause, enzyme replacement therapy would be expensive and inappropriate.

PMID: 16293672 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]