Diagnostic utility of NMO/AQP4-IgG in evaluating CNS inflammatory disease in Thai patients. Apiwattanakul M, Asawavichienjinda T, Pulkes T, Tantirittisak T, Hemachudha T, Horta ES, Jenkins SM, Pittock SJ. Source Department of Neurology, Prasat Neurological Institute, Bangkok, Thailand
Clinical features of neuromyelitis optica in a large Japanese cohort: comparison between phenotypes. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry
Analysis of 103 Hungarian patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disease M. Banati, E. Koszegi, P
BACKGROUND: Differentiating neuromyelitis optica (NMO) from multiple sclerosis (MS) is a real challenge in the clinical field. In the past, NMO (not MS), was inferred when abnormality was not detected in the brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Recently, some studies have reported abnormalities in the brain MRIs of NMO, but only few among the Asian population.
We identified the autoantibody against phosphoglycerate mutase 1 (PGAM1), which is a glycolytic enzyme, in sera from multiple sclerosis (MS) patients by proteomics-based analysis. We further searched this autoantibody in sera from patients with other neurological diseases. The prevalence of the anti-PGAM1 antibody is much higher in patients with MS and neuromyelitis optica (NMO) than in those with other neurological diseases and in healthy controls.
BACKGROUND: Although overt involvement of the central nervous system (CNS) in myasthenia gravis (MG) is considered rare, hyperreflexia is a common and yet unexplained finding. Aquaporin 4 (AQP4), the target autoantigen in neuromyelitis optica, is expressed both in the CNS and in the neuromuscular junction
Objective: To analyse clinicoepidemiological features of neuromyelitis optica in a large cohort and to compare the differences between onset age, gender and clinical phenotypes. Methods: Antiaquaporin-4 antibody (AQP4-ab) levels were tested in 2366 serum samples of patients diagnosed as having central nervous system inflammatory demyelinating disorders by their referring physicians. AQP4-ab was measured by indirect immunofluorescence staining using human AQP4-transfected HEK 293 cells.
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