Serum neurofilaments light chain as a diagnostic marker of multiple sclerosis

Neurofilaments are the structural components of neuronal axons, therefore are increasingly used in the diagnosis and course evaluation of neurological diseases. Potential application in multiple sclerosis (MS) is disease diagnosis.

The aim of this work was to assess the level of serum neurofilament light chains (sNFL) to analyze the diagnostic value in MS.

Material and methods. The study group included patients diagnosed with MS (n = 93), mean age — 38.1 (33.6; 45.9) years, EDSS 4 (2; 5.0) points. 75 patients (80.7%) had a relapsing-remitting course (RRMS), 18 (19.3%) had a secondary progressive course (SPMS). The comparison group (n = 40) consisted of forty age- and sex- matched volunteers. The concentration of sNFL was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay using a multimodal microplate reader Thermo Scientific Varioskan LUX (The Core Facility “Medical Genomics”, Tomsk NRMC). Statistical processing was carried out in the Statistica 12.0, the Mann-Whitney coefficient and ROC curve were used.

Results. The sNFL index in patients was higher than in the control group (2.08 (1.88; 2.23) and 1.96 (1.88; 2.08) pg/ml, p = 0.006). However, statistically significant differences were achieved with more than 5 years of MS duration. Sensitivity and specificity were 67.5% and 61.5%, respectively.

Conclusion. The sNFL can`t be considered as an early biomarker in MS, so its use in the primary diagnosis of the disease is not appropriate.

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