Diagnostics will become easier
Multiple sclerosis is a progressive disease of the nervous system caused by an autoimmune lesion of the myelin sheath of nerve fibers. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, almost 1 million people in the United States suffer from this disease.
Currently, there is no therapy that allows patients with multiple sclerosis to recover, but with timely treatment, it is possible to eliminate the symptoms and slow the progression of the disease.
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have developed a new test for early diagnosis of the disease, in which antibodies attack the myelin sheath of nerve fibers. Antibodies (immunoglobulins) consist of two heavy and two light chains. There are two types of light chains: kappa and lambda. The researchers proposed to identify kappa-free light chains of immunoglobulins in the cerebrospinal fluid for the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. This method has proved to be a worthy alternative to the widely used method of detecting oligoclonal immunoglobulins.
During the study, samples of cerebrospinal fluid and blood serum from 702 patients were retrospectively analyzed. To confirm the results, samples from 657 patients were prospectively analyzed in the second stage. Multiple sclerosis was diagnosed in 12%.
The researchers determined the threshold value of kappa–free light chains - 0.1 milligrams per deciliter. In the retrospective subgroup, the sensitivity of the method was 68.2%, and the specificity was 86.1%; in the prospective cohort, these parameters were 78.6% and 87.1%, respectively. Thus, the method showed the same effectiveness as the detection of oligoclonal immunoglobulins. In addition, the determination of kappa–free light chains in the cerebrospinal fluid is a much cheaper and faster method - the results are available in about 20 minutes.
Article by R.S.Saadeh et al. Kappa Free Light Chains: Cutoff Validation for Diagnosing Multiple Sclerosis is published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
Aminat Adzhieva, portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on EurekAlert: Mayo Clinic researchers develop new antibody test to diagnose MS.