Multiple Sclerosis Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Multiple Sclerosis, including details on diagnosis, symptoms, treatment, prognosis.

Acinetobacter immune responses in multiple sclerosis: etiopathogenetic role and its possible use as a diagnostic marker.

Ebringer A, Hughes L, Rashid T, Wilson C

Division of Life Sciences, Infection and Immunity Group, Waterloo Campus, King's College, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1, England, UK. alan.ebringer@kcl.ac.uk

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common cause of neurologic disability among young people. The etiology of MS is controversial, but immune responses are considered to somehow be involved. The diagnosis of MS depends on a combination of various clinical and laboratory features, but apart from some myelin-neuronal autoantibody profiles or oligoclonal bands in the cerebrospinal fluid no other serologic diagnostic test or marker has yet been discovered. However, the presence of antibodies to Acinetobacter species in MS patients opens the possibility of developing a composite laboratory diagnostic marker, the myelin-Acinetobacter-neurofilament index. Whether Acinetobacter is the triggering agent of MS remains to be determined, but the measurement of anti-Acinetobacter antibodies could be used as a marker of disease activity. To evaluate this, prospective randomized controlled studies should be performed with MS patients, especially in the early stages of the disease.

Published 11 January 2005 in Arch Neurol, 62(1): 33-6.
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