Correction to: Systematic review of randomized controlled trials for chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME)

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.


Result section
The updated sentences are given below, and the changes have been highlighted in bold typeface.

Characteristics of RCTs meeting the inclusion criteria
From the PubMed and Cochran databases, a total of 513 articles were initially identified, and 56 articles ultimately met the inclusion criteria for this study (Fig. 1). Fifty-one RCTs (91.1%) were conducted for adult patients, while 5 RCTs (8.9%) were conducted for the adolescent population ( Table 1). The majority of RCTs were conducted in 3 countries: the UK (n = 16), the Netherlands (n = 14), and the USA (n = 9). Regarding interventions, 29 RCTs (51.8%) conducted nonpharmacological interventions, 25 RCTs (44.6%) conducted pharmacological interventions and 2 RCTs conducted a combination of pharmacological and nonpharmacological interventions (Tables 2  and 3).

Main outcome measurement
A total of 31 primary measurement tools were used to assess the main outcome in 56 RCTs. The Checklist Individual Strength (CIS) was the most frequently used (35.7%), and others included the 36-item Short Form health survey (SF-36, 32.1%), Sickness Impact Profile (SIP, 14.3%), Chalder Fatigue Scale (14.3%), Visual Analogue Scale (VAS, 10.7%) and Clinical Global Impression (CGI, 8.9%). There were 29 RCTs that used multiple primary measurements (Table 1).

Discussion section
The updated sentences are given below, and the changes have been highlighted in bold typeface. Sentences with only a change in reference citations numbering (the original references 46-92 were re-numbered to 47-93) are not provided.

The first paragraph (the 3rd sentence)
To support future studies for CFS/ME treatments, we systematically reviewed 56 RCTs to investigate characteristics such as participants, case definitions, interventions and primary measurements.

The second paragraph (the 1st sentence)
The sex ratio of the participants was male 1 vs. female 3 (1713/5143, except one RCT had recruited only females).

The fifth paragraph (the 8th and 11th sentences)
Contrary to the positive outcomes in the 1990s and 2000s, more recent CBT trials have failed to show consistent benefits in patients with CFS/ME: 5 of 8 RCTs of CBT did not show significant effects in our data.
In our data, 5 of 6 RCTs with graded-exercise-related therapies presented positive outcomes; however, the clinical usefulness of GET is highly controversial [89].

The eighth paragraph (the 5th sentence)
In addition, only 9 of 56 RCTs had presented fragmentary data related to blood parameters.

Reference section
As one RCT (PACE trial) was added, its reference information [2] was included in the reference list as reference number 46. Accordingly, the original references 46-92 were re-numbered to 47-93. Figures 1 and 2.   Tables   The updated Tables 1, 3 and 4 are given below, and the changes have been highlighted in bold typeface.