Elevation of neuron-specific enolase in serum and cerebrospinal fluid of early stage Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the levels of neuron-specific enolase (NSE) in serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with early stage Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).


METHODS
The levels of NSE in serum and CSF were examined in 6 cases with CJD patients. The levels of NSE in CSF were measured in 8 age matched control patients with other neurological diseases and the levels of serum NSE were also measured in another 8 age matched control patients with other neurological diseases. The groups of 8 age matched control patients consisted of 1 same patient and 7 different patients in the 2 control groups both for serum and CSF.


RESULTS
The level of serum NSE in CJD (17.3 +/- 7.0 ng/ml, mean +/- SD) was significantly higher than that of controls (6.5 +/- 1.6) (P < 0.02) as was the case in CSF (79.3 +/- 53.3 ng/ml) vs (9.6 +/- 2.9) (P < 0.03).


CONCLUSIONS
Although mean NSE levels of CJD were higher in CSF than in the serum, there still is a case with higher serum NSE level than CSF. These results suggest that the mechanism of elevation of serum NSE may not be a simple leakage from CSF, and that the measurement of serum NSE level may be useful for diagnosis of early stage CJD.
Kohira
I
I
Department of Neurology, Okayama University Medical School. kohira@kcan.ne.jp
Tsuji
T
T
Ishizu
H
H
Takao
Y
Y
Wake
A
A
Abe
K
K
Kuroda
S
S
D000368:Aged; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D007562:Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome / Q000503:physiopathology*; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010751:Phosphopyruvate Hydratase / Q000097:blood* / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid*
D015415:Biomarkers; D010751:Phosphopyruvate Hydratase