Le catene leggere libere Kappa e Lambda nella sclerosi multipla ed in altri disordini neurologici [Free kappa and lambda chains in multiple sclerosis and other neurological disorders]

Based on previous reports on Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) Free Light Chains Kappa (FLCK) and Lambda (FLCL), we assayed FLCK and FLCL in CSF and Serum of patients affected by Clinically Definite/Probable Multiple Sclerosis (CD/PMS; No. = 32), Clinically Possible/Suspected Multiple Sclerosis (CP/SMS; No. = 15), Other Neurological Disorders (OND; No. = 55) and 27 Normal Controls. The concentration of CSF FLCK and FLCL resulted higher in CD/PMS and in OND rather than in other two groups. For OND, a possible explanation may be the greater number of Inflammatory Central Nervous System Disorders present in this group. On the contrary, the Kappa/Lambda (Serum/CSF) ratio is statistically significant only for OND. This would seem to indicate that OND are dependent from the systemic humoral immune response and the CD/PMS from the intrathecal. In this view, we can suppose that the assay of FLCK and FLCL may have important diagnostic usefulness, since the specificity for CD/PMS appears to be high.