Some oxidative and antioxidative parameters and their relationship with clinical symptoms in women with fibromyalgia syndrome.

Objective: In the present study we examined the involvement of oxidative and antioxidative parameters in women with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) and also evaluated their correlation with Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire Revised (FIQR).

Methods: Oxidative stress was determined by measuring the levels of lipid peroxides (LPO) and protein carbonyls in plasma and antioxidative parameters like catalase, glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and glutathione reductase (GR) in blood lysate in 30 female patients satisfying the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria for FMS and 30 healthy females without FMS. Clinical parameters of FMS were evaluated by FIQR.

Results: Activity of enzymes catalase (patients, 41.0 ± 0.94; controls, 57.3 ± 1.58), GR (patients, 24.4 ± 0.77; controls, 28.1 ± 1.13) and GPx (patients, 28.2 ± 0.69; controls, 38.7 ± 0.93) were significantly lower in patients with FMS than in controls, and levels of oxidative stress parameters, LPO (patients, 3.31 ± 0.10; controls, 2.2 ± 0.06) and protein carbonyls (patients, 1.90 ± 0.08; controls, 1.32 ± 0.04) were significantly higher in patients than in controls. A significant positive correlation was found between LPO and FIQR in the patient group. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation was also found between protein carbonyls and FIQR in the patient group than in the control group.

Conclusions: The present results indicate that women with FMS are exposed to oxidative stress. Moreover, our results also showed that increased oxidative stress parameters are more strongly associated with severity of FMS.