ACTRIMS 2022 | Improving the correlation between serum NfL and CSF NfL

Ruturaj Masvekar, PhD, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, shares the findings of a study aiming to identify confounders of serum neurofilament light chain (sNfL) to strengthen its clinical utility. Studies directly comparing sNfL with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) NfL in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) have shown only a 40-60% correlation. In this study, matched CSF and serum samples from over 1100 patients with MS and non-MS controls were analyzed to generate multiple linear regression (MLR) models that improved the correlation between sNFL and CSF NFL. Age, kidney function, and weight were identified as significant confounders. In a separate validation cohort, adjusting for these factors explained an additional 10% of variance. This interview took place at the ACTRIMS Forum 2022 in West Palm Beach, Florida.