Blood test can determine who is at risk of developing multiple sclerosis - scientists

Early signs of multiple sclerosis may help doctors figure out who will eventually fall victim to the degenerative nerve disease, according to a new study.

In one in 10 cases of multiple sclerosis, the body begins producing a specific set of antibodies in the blood years before symptoms appear, scientists reported in a study published in Nature Medicine.

Researchers found that this set of antibodies was 100 per cent predictive of a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Every patient who was identified with this set of antibodies developed multiple sclerosis.

An autoimmune disease such as multiple sclerosis is thought to result in part from rare immune responses to common infections.

For this study, scientists analysed blood samples taken from 250 multiple sclerosis patients before and after diagnosis and compared them with blood samples from healthy people.

The researchers thought they would see a spike in antibody levels when multiple sclerosis patients showed the first symptoms of the disease.

The researchers thought they would see a spike in antibody levels when multiple sclerosis patients showed the first symptoms of the disease. Instead, they found that 10 per cent of multiple sclerosis patients had strikingly high levels of autoantibodies - antibodies that can attack the body itself - years before diagnosis.

About a dozen of the autoantibodies identified by the researchers had chemical compositions similar to those found in common viruses. These included the Epstein-Barr virus, which affects more than 85 per cent of all people and has been highlighted in earlier studies as a potential cause of multiple sclerosis.

In fact, these 10% of multiple sclerosis patients showed signs of an immune war raging in the brain years before diagnosis. These patients also had elevated levels of a protein that is released when neurons are destroyed.

To confirm their findings, the researchers analysed blood samples from patients participating in another study linked to neurological symptoms. Again, the same set of autoantibodies were detected in 10 per cent of patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Scientists hope that these antibodies will someday form the basis of a simple blood test to detect forms of multiple sclerosis.

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