Anti-aquaporin-4 antibody in Chinese patients with central nervous system inflammatory demyelinating disorders. Long Y, Qiu W, Hu X, Peng F, Lu Z, Wang Y, Yang Y. Source Department of Neurology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, 600 Tianhe Road, Guangzhou 510630, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China; Department of Neurology, Clinical College, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, 19 Nonglinxia Road, Guangzhou 510080, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China.
Background: Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO) serology is a powerful tool for differential diagnosis from Multiple Sclerosis (MS). This study aims to perform a post-marketing evaluation of the first indirect immunofluorescence assay (IIFA) commercially available for NMO serology
We report two patients, both with a history of gastric surgery, who presented with progressive optic neuropathy and myelopathy. The patients’ symptoms were initially attributed to vitamin B12 deficiency and/or neuromyelitis optica; however, after the neurologic deficits continued to progress with the use of conventional treatments, further evaluation was initiated, and a severe copper deficiency was revealed.
We systematically evaluated the frequency of neurological disorders and muscle and neural autoantibodies in 177 patients with neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and in 250 control subjects (173 healthy; 77 multiple sclerosis, MS, patients). An excess of myasthenia gravis (MG, 2%), and muscle-type acetylcholine receptor antibody (11%) was detected among NMO patients. The presence of neural or muscle autoantibodies was more common in NMO patients (34%) than in MS patients or healthy controls (7%), P less than 0.0001