Serum samples from 30 patients with NMO and 26 patients with high risk NMO were recruited prospectively from 2007 to 2009 by the Austrian NMO Study-Group from several Austrian Neurological Departments, or were sent in for AQP4 antibody testing by the Department of Neurology, University of Heidelberg, Germany (n = 10). The Austrian NMO Study-Group was established to obtain clinical, neuroradiological and immunological data of Austrian patients with definite and high risk NMO, to enable an early and appropriate treatment, and to determine the so far unknown prevalence of NMO in Austria. The present study was approved by the ethical committee of Innsbruck Medical University (study no. UN3041 257/4.8) and all Austrian patients gave written informed consent to the study protocol. All German samples were tested in an anonymized fashion as requested by the institutional review board of the University of Heidelberg. All NMO patients met the revised diagnostic criteria of 1999 [1] (link) and 97% of patients showed longitudinally extensive transverse myelitis extending over more than three vertebral segments. Ninety-seven percent of definite NMO cases were females (Table 1). The high risk group of NMO patients comprised two patients with recurrent ON (8%) and 24 patients with a single episode or recurrent LETM (92%), including three neuropsychiatric SLE patients and two patients with neurosarcoidosis. Additionally, we included 101 patients with MS according to the revised “McDonald Criteria” [23] (link): 64 patients with relapsing remitting MS (RRMS), 13 patients with primary progressive MS (PPMS) and 24 patients with secondary progressive MS (SPMS). Moreover, 27 patients with CIS, 29 patients with various OND (ischemic infarct, parkinson disease, epileptic seizure, radiculopathy, insomnia, sleep apnoea syndrome, CNS lymphoma, traumatic brain injury, myasthenia gravis, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, vestibular neuritis, orthostatic syncope, psychogenic neurological symptoms, CNS vasculitis, hereditary neuropathy, analgesic-induced headache, neuroborreliosis, viral encephalitis, chronic tension-type headache, glioblastoma multiforme), 30 patients with SLE or SS and 47 HC were screened for AQP4-Ig.
Serial blood samples were available from two patients with recurrent ON who converted to NMO after 2.6 and 8.7 years.
None of the patients was under high-dose methylprednisolone treatment (HDMP) at the time of blood sampling.
All samples were stored at −20°C until use.
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