• J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Mar 2015

    Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study

    Serum neurofilament light chain is a biomarker of human spinal cord injury severity and outcome.

    • Jens Kuhle, Johanna Gaiottino, David Leppert, Axel Petzold, Jonathan P Bestwick, Andrea Malaspina, Ching-Hua Lu, Ruth Dobson, Giulio Disanto, Niklas Norgren, Ahuva Nissim, Ludwig Kappos, John Hurlbert, V Wee Yong, Gavin Giovannoni, and Steven Casha.
    • Blizard Institute, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK Neurology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
    • J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. 2015 Mar 1; 86 (3): 273-9.

    BackgroundNeurofilaments (Nf) are major structural proteins that occur exclusively in neurons. In spinal cord injury (SCI), the severity of disease is quantified by clinical measures that have limited sensitivity and reliability, and no blood-based biomarker has been established to further stratify the degree of injury. We aimed to examine a serum-based NfL immunoassay as predictor of the clinical outcome in SCI.MethodsLongitudinal measurement of serum NfL was performed in patients with central cord syndrome (CCS, n=4), motor-incomplete SCI (iSCI, n=10), motor-complete SCI (cSCI, n=13) and healthy controls (HC, n=67), and correlated with clinical severity, neurological outcome, and neuroprotective effect of the drug minocycline.ResultsBaseline NfL levels were higher in iSCI (21 pg/mL) and cSCI (70 pg/mL) than in HC (5 pg/mL, p=0.006 and p<0.001) and CCS (6 pg/mL, p=0.025 and p=0.010). Levels increased over time (p<0.001) and remained higher in cSCI versus iSCI (p=0.011) and than in CCS (p<0.001). NfL levels correlated with American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) motor score at baseline (r=-0.53, p=0.004) and after 24 h (r=-0.69, p<0.001) and 3-12-month motor outcome (baseline NfL: r=-0.43, p=0.026 and 24 h NfL: r=-0.72, p<0.001). Minocycline treatment showed decreased NfL levels in the subgroup of cSCI patients.ConclusionsSerum NfL concentrations in SCI patients show a close correlation with acute severity and neurological outcome. Our data provide evidence that serum NfL is of prognostic value in SCI patients for the first time. Further, blood NfL levels may qualify as drug response markers in SCI.Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…