High prevalence and indexes of anti-John Cunningham virus antibodies in a cohort of Chinese patients with multiple sclerosis

Alexander Lau; Wei Qiu; Allan Kermode; Cheryl Au; Angel Ng; Adrian Wong; Sze-Ho Ma; Lisa Au; Karen Ma; Bonaventure Ip; Vincent Mok

doi:10.1177/2055217318788699

High prevalence and indexes of anti-John Cunningham virus antibodies in a cohort of Chinese patients with multiple sclerosis

Mult Scler J Exp Transl Clin. 2018 Jul 17;4(3):2055217318788699. doi: 10.1177/2055217318788699. eCollection 2018 Jul-Sep.

Authors

Alexander Lau¹, Wei Qiu², Allan Kermode³, Cheryl Au¹, Angel Ng¹, Adrian Wong¹, Sze-Ho Ma¹, Lisa Au¹, Karen Ma¹, Bonaventure Ip¹, Vincent Mok¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China.
² Department of Neurology, Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, China.
³ Perron Institute, University of Western Australia, Australia.

Abstract

We performed a cross-sectional study in 123 Chinese multiple sclerosis patients residing in Hong Kong to evaluate their anti-John Cunningham virus status using STRATIFY JCV DxSelect assays. Anti-John Cunningham virus antibody was present in 98/123 (80%) subjects, among which 75/98 (77%) had an anti-John Cunningham virus index ≥1.5. Anti-John Cunningham virus antibody seropositivity was not correlated with age, disease duration, Expanded Disability Status Scale scores, types of multiple sclerosis (relapsing vs progressive), or disease-modifying treatments used. We found a very high seroprevalence and index of anti-John Cunningham virus antibodies in Chinese multiple sclerosis patients, which may impact the risk assessment and recommendation of disease-modifying treatments in this population.

Keywords: Anti-John Cunningham virus antibody; Chinese; anti-John Cunningham virus index; multiple sclerosis; progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy.