Diagnosis and Treatment of Mycoplasmal Infections in Persian Gulf War Illness-cfids Patients

Veterans of Operation Desert Storm returned from the Persian Gulf Theater of Operations and developed multiple signs and symptoms characterized by disabling fatigue, arthralgia, intermittent fever, myalgia, impairments in short-term memory, headaches, skin rashes, diarrhea and additional symptoms that have defied a disease case definition but has been called Gulf War Illness (GWI). In a sampling of GWI patients and symptomatic family members (n=30) we have used the technique of Gene Tracking and have found evidence of mycoplasmal infections in the blood leukocytes of approximately one-half of these cases. Mycoplasma-positive patients can be successfully treated with several 6 week courses of doxycycline (200 mg/d) or other antibiotics. Of the 14/30 patients that were mycoplasma-positive, 11/14 completely recovered after multiple cycles of antibiotics and 3/14 are still undergoing antibiotic therapy and relapsing.