the association between borna disease virus and chronic fatigue syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Context: several studies have controversial results regarding the association between borna disease virus (bdv) and chronic fatigue syndrome (cfs). the present systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the association between cfs and bdv. evidence acquisition: the present study was conducted based on the prisma guidelines for systematic review and meta-analysis studies. to avoid bias, all procedures of the study were performed by two researchers independently. a comprehensive search was performed using online databases, including pubmed, scopus, embase, psycinfo, science direct, cochrane library, web of science, and google scholar using the mesh keywords until december 12^th, 2016. heterogeneity among studies was evaluated using cochran’s q test i2 index. finally, the random effect model was used for combined odds ratio (or) using review manger software version 5.3.5. results: among 9 eligible studies comprising 610 cases and 2176 controls, the total or for association between bdv and cfs was estimated to be 10.41 (95% confidence interval [ci]: 4.24 - 25.55, p < 0.0001). for subgroup analysis by the diagnostic methods (elisa, rt-pcr, and western blot), or was 2.47 (95% ci: 0.77 - 7.96, p=0.13), 12.20 (95% ci: 1.66 - 89.57, p=0.01), and 28.36 (95% ci: 3.76-213.85, p=0.001), respectively (test for subgroup differences: p=0.08; i^2=59.5). subgroup analysis for bdv and cfs association by antigens and antibodies had an or of 12.20 (1.66, 89.57) and 8.20 (3.32, 20.22), respectively (test for subgroup differences: p=0.72; i^2=0). conclusions: this study supports the association between bdv and cfs and shows the role of viral agents in etiology of cfs. therefore, viral agents may play a role in the etiology of neuropsychiatric disorders.