Determination of medullasin levels for the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis

To obtain a simple and reliable clinical parameter for the diagnosis of mul tiple sclerosis among patients with neurological diseases. Patients find me thods - Heparinized peripheral blood was obtained from patients with multip le sclerosis and those with noninflammatory neurological diseases and healt hy volunteers. A new enzyme immunoassay method determining medullasin level s in human granulocytes was developed by using mouse monoclonal antibody ag ainst medullasin. Results - A newly developed enzyme immunoassay method for medullasin can detect as little as 1 ng/ml medullasin and results can be o btained within 2 h. Eighty-five out of 112 patients with multiple sclerosis (75.8%) showed positive results (above means of normals + 2 SD) in the med ullasin test, while 15.4%, (12/78) of patients with non-inflammatory neurol ogical disease had positive results. Conclusion - This newly developed enzy me immunoassay method for medullasin is considered to be a useful paraclini cal test for the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.