I just thought I would post a quick comment here on the press release for this paper (1a,1b).

At one point, it says: "In 2011, the first findings from the PACE trial showed that CBT and GET benefit around 60 per cent of patients with CFS/ME, for whom fatigue was the main symptom." I think this needs to be put in some sort of context.

Those who had cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) also got specialist medical care (SMC). There was also a group that got SMC alone. 45% of the group who got specialist care alone improved by the (post hoc) definition of improvement reported on (one of the primary outcome measures in the protocol was also improvement but this was never reported)(2,3). The 60% looks less impressive in this context

References:
1a "Two effective treatments for CFS/ME also cost-effective" Medical Research Council: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iop/...
1b "two effective treatments for CFS/ME also cost-effective" Institute of Psychiatry website: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iop/...

2 White PD, Goldsmith KA, Johnson AL, Potts L, Walwyn R, et al. (2011) Comparison of adaptive pacing therapy, cognitive behaviour therapy, graded exercise therapy, and specialist medical care for chronic fatigue syndrome (PACE): a randomised trial. Lancet 377: 823–836.

3 White PD, Sharpe MC, Chalder T, DeCesare JC, Walwyn R; on behalf of the PACE trial group. Protocol for the PACE trial: a randomised controlled trial of adaptive pacing, cognitive behaviour therapy, and graded exercise, as supplements to standardised specialist medical care versus standardised specialist medical care alone for patients with the chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis or encephalopathy. BioMed Cent Neurol 2007; 7: 6. http://www.biomedcentral....