Elevated Serum GFAP Predicts MS-Associated Diffuse White Matter Damage

Increased serum glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) levels are associated with measurable microdamage in the normal appearing white matter (NAWM) of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), suggesting that GFAP could be used as a biomarker for pathology-related astrocytopathy in MS, according to study results published in Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders.

In this study, 62 patients with MS (median age, 49.2 years) with relapsing remitting (n=39) or secondary progressive (n=23) disease underwent diffusion tension imaging (DTI) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as blood sampling for GFAP determination by single molecule array. A total of 10 healthy controls were also recruited for this study.

Study researchers determined mean fractional anisotropy (FA) as well as mean (MD), axial (AD), and radial (RD) diffusivities within the entire NAWM, in addition to 6 segmented regions of NAWM. They used Spearman correlation analysis to evaluate the relationship between DTI parameters and GFAP levels.

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