The MRZ Reaction Helps to Distinguish Rheumatologic Disorders with Central Nervous Involvement from Multiple Sclerosis

Overview

Journal BMC Neurol

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Neurology

Date 2018 Feb 2

PMID 29386006

Citations 4

Authors

Tilman Hottenrott

Rick Dersch

Benjamin Berger

Dominique Endres

Daniela Huzly

Jens Thiel

Sebastian Rauer

Oliver Stich

Ulrich Salzer

Nils Venhoff

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Some rheumatologic disorders may initially manifest with central nervous system (CNS) affection, mimicking the clinical, magnetic resonance imaging, and cerebrospinal fluid findings of multiple sclerosis (MS). The MRZ reaction (MRZR), composed of the three respective antibody indices (AIs) against measles, rubella, and varicella zoster virus, has been found positive frequently in MS patients. However, it is unclear whether the MRZR is helpful to distinguish rheumatologic disorders with CNS involvement (RDwCNS) from MS.

Methods: The MRZR was evaluated in patients with RDwCNS (n = 23), MS (n = 46; age and sex matched to patients with RDwCNS), and other inflammatory autoimmune neurological diseases affecting the CNS (OIND; n = 48). Both the stringency levels that have been used in previous MRZR studies, MRZR-1 (≥ 1 of 3 AIs positive) and MRZR-2 (≥ 2 of 3 AIs positive), were applied.

Results: There was no statistically significant difference in the prevalence of positive MRZR between patients with RDwCNS (MRZR-1: 13.0% and MRZR-2: 8.7%, respectively) and OIND (MRZR-1: 22.9% and MRZR-2: 8.3%, respectively). Compared to these two study cohorts, the MS group exhibited significantly higher prevalences of positive MRZR (MRZR-1: 82.6%, MRZR-2: 63.0%; p < 0.005 each).

Conclusions: Considering the high specificity of MRZR-2 for MS found in this study, MRZR-2 can be a useful diagnostic tool for distinguishing MS from RDwCNS or OIND.

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