Serum antibodies to neurofilament antigens in patients with neurological and other diseases and in healthy controls.

A total of 529 sera from patients with a wide variety of neurological and non-neurological diseases, and 101 sera from healthy control subjects, were examined by indirect immunofluorescence for the presence of autoantibodies to neurofilament antigens. Antibodies were found in approximately 50% of sera from patients with spongiform encephalopathies, 15-30% of sera from patients with other neurological and non-neurological diseases, and 7% of sera from healthy controls. The antigenic stimulus to these autoantibodies in very diverse disease processes is unknown, but as presently assayed, they are not of sufficient specificity to be useful as an aid to clinical diagnosis.