Journal Club Recap: October 11, 2019

October 15, 2019: At Journal Club, our experts sat down to discuss a paper on neurofilament light chain levels in patients with presymptomatic MS.

Bjornevik et al 2019 - Serum Neurofilament Light Chain Levels in Patients With Presymptomatic Multiple Sclerosis

Neurofilament light chain (NfL) has long been a biomarker of neurological disorders. It has been previously established that NfL levels are increased in patients with MS and further elevated when patients have active disease. This research group investigated the possibility of NfL levels as a predictor of MS and as a diagnostic tool. Their results demonstrated that blood levels of NfL were increased six years before clinical onset of MS which may mean that MS has a developmental phase that lasts several years and that axonal damage is occurring during this period. Further research is needed to understand the implications of this as a diagnostic tool and its relationship to the cause of MS.