title: Cerebrospinal fluid interleukin 6 in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: immunological parameter and comparison with inflammatory and non-inflammatory central nervous system diseases.
abstract: We assayed IL-6 in 105 cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from patients with ALS, MS, HTLV-1 associated myelopathy (HAM), and controls. There was considerable overlap in IL-6 levels in all patient groups. The mean IL-6 in 27 patients with ALS was significantly higher than in 21 patients in the other neurological disease (OND) group (P=0.0075). There were no significant differences in MS or HAM and the OND control group. Overall, CSF IL-6 correlated with protein concentration but not with percentage IgG or IgG-albumin index. Patients with CSF oligoclonal bands were no more likely to have detectable IL-6 than patients without oligoclonal bands. Similarly, IL-6 did not correlate with clinical disease activity in MS when subgroups of patients were compared or when an individual patient was followed over time. The elevated IL-6 in ALS may reflect an ongoing humoral immune response, or IL-6 may be non-specifically expressed in these patients as a putative neurotrophic factor in response to nerve cell degeneration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sekizawa
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Openshaw
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ohbo
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sugamura
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Itoyama
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Niland
mesh_terms: D000690:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid* / Q000276:immunology; D002493:Central Nervous System Diseases / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid* / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid* / Q000276:immunology; D015850:Interleukin-6 / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid*; D016015:Logistic Models; D009103:Multiple Sclerosis / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid; D015493:Paraparesis, Tropical Spastic / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid
chemical_list: D015850:Interleukin-6