ABSTRACT
Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia. Early diagnosis of diseases leading to dementia is cost-effective. However, early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease may be difficult and should not be based on exclusion of other reasons for dementia. A decreased CSF amyloid beta-peptide-42 level together with elevated tau or phosphorylated tau levels can differentiate patients with AD from control subjects or patients with other neurologic conditions with relatively high accuracy. We evaluated the use of these biomarkers in 452 patient cohort during 2005-2007 in clinical practice. Cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers seem to be useful especially to confirm Alzheimer's disease diagnosis.
Subject(s)
Alzheimer Disease/diagnosis , Amyloid beta-Peptides/cerebrospinal fluid , tau Proteins/cerebrospinal fluid , Biomarkers/cerebrospinal fluid , HumansABSTRACT
A prospective study of the expression of the chemokine receptor CCR7 was performed in 11 relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) patients during 12 months of interferon-beta (IFNbeta) treatment. The results show increased expression of CCR7 on peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) of MS patients receiving IFNbeta treatment as well as lymphocytes from healthy subjects treated with IFNbeta in vitro. Our results suggest that in addition to modulating the expression of adhesion molecules, the mode of action of IFNbeta also involves the control of the chemokine receptor CCR7. The net effect is a key change in the control of lymphocyte traffic between immune organs and the central nervous system (CNS) and a shift from CCR7 negative effector T cells to CCR7 positive central memory T cells.