CHRONIC FATIGUE - A PECULIAR EVOLUTION OF EOSINOPHILIA-MYALGIA-SYNDROME FOLLOWING TREATMENT WITH L-TRYPTOPHAN IN 4 ITALIAN ADOLESCENTS

We describe four Italian adolescents in whom a persistent, debilitatin g fatigue appeared after therapeutic ingestion of products containing L-tryptophan and subsequent to the development of a transient rise in eosinophil count and severe myalgia (Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome-EMS ). Their clinical picture was indistinnuishable from that of the socal led Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. A chronic fatigue may occur after divers e triggering agents and it represents the peculiar clinical evolution of these four paediatric cases of EMS.