Objectives: Antibodies against glutamic acid decarboxylase isoform 65 (GAD-Ab) have been found in different severe neurological conditions associated with altered synthesis of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Serum GAD-Ab can be found in up to 90 % of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM), mostly at relatively low concentrations, while high concentrations of GAD-ab are thought to be more frequently associate to a neurological condition, with levels 100-folds higher than those found in T1DM. Although CSF testing is recommended when suspecting a GAD-associated neurological syndrome, no commercial immunoassay is validated for this use and no cut-off is internationally recognized to support the diagnosis.
Methods: In this study we validated CSF testing of GAD-Ab on an automated chemiluminescence (CLIA) immunoassay that had previously shown good agreement with ELISA on serum.
Results: We tested 43 CSF from patients with typical GAD-associated neurological disorders and patients with other neurological conditions, identifying a clinical cut-off of 18 kIU/L that discriminated GAD-disease with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.921. CLIA showed good analytical performances on repeatability and recovery tests in CSF and confirmed an excellent agreement with ELISA.
Conclusions: GAD-Ab associated neurological disorders are rare but CSF testing for GAD-Ab is a common request for neurologists when suspecting an insidious autoimmune central nervous system disease. CLIA platforms are expected to be increasingly adopted in clinical laboratories due to their flexibility and reliability, therefore studies on decisional levels should be implemented for improving the interpretation and utilization of laboratory data.
Keywords: GAD antibodies; analytical validation; autoantibodies; cerebrospinal fluid; chemiluminescence immunoassay; neurological syndromes.
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