Advances in diagnostic and treatment options in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome

Abstract

Jill M Recla1,21IGERT Program in Functional Genomics, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA; 2The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME, USADear Dr Liu,I have read with great interest the article entitled “Advances in diagnostic and treatment options in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome” by Gur and Oktayoglu, which has been published online in Open Access Rheumatology: Research and Reviews.1 The authors aimed to evaluate new diagnostic tools and new therapeutic treatment approaches for fibromyalgia (FM). I would like to comment on the article by referring to my recently published work in Medical Hypotheses,2 which the authors reference in their section on the N-methyl d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist memantine. My article describes the hypothesis that a combined therapeutic approach of the pharmaceuticals pregabalin and memantine may provide analgesic and neuroprotective benefits to patients with FM. The authors’ statement, which directly references my work – “Memantine may also suppress neuronal excitability and confers neuroprotection in a manner similar to pregabalin” – was either misinterpreted or misquoted from my article, in which I make a similar statement (using the word “confer” rather than “confers”). Although the syntactical difference is slight, the ramifications are profound, and I thusly feel that this statement requires further clarification.