In April 2008 Brett
Thombs and co-investigators Murray Baron, Marie Hudson, Eva Libman and Suzanne
Taillefer were awarded a grant from the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec
(FRSQ) to develop a systematic approach to assessing fatigue in Scleroderma.
Persistent fatigue plays a crucial role in determining Health-Related Quality
of Life (HRQoL) in chronic disease and unfortunately it is often overlooked by
clinicians and researchers. Two important factors that make addressing
fatigue difficult are (1) the lack of an agreed-upon standard for identifying
clinically significant fatigue, and (2) an insufficient understanding of
fatigue etiology that hinders treatment development. With this grant,
researchers plan to address these issues by building on research done on
Chronic Illness-Related Fatigue in cancer patients. To meet these objectives researchers will use
information from patients enrolled in the CSRG Registry. Patients will fill-out
three widely-used fatigue measurement scales at their annual visit and a
certain subset of these individuals will undergo a diagnostic interview for
Chronic Illness-Related Fatigue. Specimens of blood drawn at each visit will
also be tested for cytokine biomarkers. It is well known that chronic illnesses, such as SSc,
are becoming an increasingly larger concern of health care system around the
world and given that fatigue is known to decrease HRQoL and increase disability
in such illnesses, it is imperative that a fatigue assessment tool be developed
and validated for individuals with SSc. v
Interested in learning more about Dr. Brett Thomb's
other research project?