Diagnostic Criteria and Clinical Assessment
Multiple diagnostic criteria have been developed for ME/CFS. This chapter reviews major frameworks and their application.
For patients: read the diagnostic-overview section (Overview of Diagnostic Approaches) to understand what a diagnosis requires and how the criteria have evolved.
For caregivers: read the diagnostic-overview section (Overview of Diagnostic Approaches) to understand how the diagnosis is established and what the criteria mean.
For clinicians: read the framework comparison sections (Canadian Consensus Criteria (2003), International Consensus Criteria (2011)) to select an approach, and the clinical-assessment section (Clinical Assessment) to apply it. The differential-diagnosis section (Differential Diagnosis) is a lookup for excluding other conditions.
For researchers: read the framework comparison sections (Canadian Consensus Criteria (2003), International Consensus Criteria (2011), Other Diagnostic Frameworks) and the novel-framework section (Novel Biology-Informed Diagnostic Framework) to understand case-definition choices and their trade-offs.