Diagnostic value of CSF proteins assay in differential diagnosis of CNS disease

The differential diagnosis between inflammatory and noninflammatory diseases of CNS includes CSF quantitative measurements of immunoglobulin and albumin concentrations and their comparison to the serum. For that purpose we estimated the concentrations of albumin and immunoglobulin G both in CSF and serum of patients with inflammatory and noninflammatory diseases of CNS. Parallely, these parameters were determined in the control group composed of patients having the values of investigated parameters within reference ranges. The obtained data were statistically evaluated by nonparametric Mann-Whitney test. The values of calculated CSF/albumin ratio have shown significant differences between the both patient groups and the control one (p 0.05). On the contrary, significant difference have been observed between the group with inflammatory diseases and the control (p < 0.05), proving the existence of IgG intrathecal synthesis. Values of both indexes were much higher in patients with inflammatory than noninflamatory diseases, meaning that they can be used in differential diagnosis.