Biology and therapy of fibromyalgia. Evidence-based biomarkers for fibromyalgia syndrome.

Researchers studying fibromyalgia strive to identify objective, measurable biomarkers that may identify susceptible individuals, may facilitate diagnosis, or that parallel activity of the disease. Candidate objective measures range from sophisticated functional neuroimaging to office-ready measures of the pressure pain threshold. A systematic literature review was completed to assess highly investigated, objective measures used in fibromyalgia studies. To date, only experimental pain testing has been shown to coincide with improvements in clinical status in a longitudinal study. Concerted efforts to systematically evaluate additional objective measures in research trials will be vital for ongoing progress in outcome research and translation into clinical practice.