Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune inflammatory disease estimated to affect 2.5 million people globally¹. Early diagnosis and treatment is important to limit its impact on patients’ quality of life.

A diagnosis of MS is made primarily on the basis of medical history and physical examination, with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) used to identify neurological lesions.² Detection of intrathecal immunoglobulins can support a diagnosis of MS.

Elevated concentrations of intrathecal free light chains (FLCs), especially κ FLCs, are being increasingly used as markers of intrathecal immunoglobulin synthesis. Studies have shown that an increased κ FLC index ( [κ FLC _CSF/ κ FLC _serum ]/[albumin_CSF/albumin_serum] ) can support a diagnosis of MS (Figure 1)^3-6 and assist in differentiating MS from neurological disorders (Figure 2).^3,6

Elevated κ FLC has excellent concordance with other methods used to detect intrathecal immunoglobulins such as oligoclonal band (OCB) analysis and has equivalent diagnostic sensitivity and specificity (Table 1).

Table 1: Comparison of sensitivity and specificity of immunoglobulin OCB and κ FLC index as markers for MS