Relationship Between Serum Neurofilament Light and Multiple Sclerosis Disability Progression

Neurofilament light (NfL) is a scaffolding cytoskeletal protein that is expressed exclusively in central and peripheral neurons and is released when there is damage to the neuron, including its axon. NfL can be measured in the CSF and serum, with modest correlations between the two.1,2 This makes serum NfL (sNfL) an attractive potential biomarker for a variety of neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory conditions, including multiple sclerosis (MS). Potential applications to neurologic conditions include a prognostic biomarker to predict disease progression and a pharmacodynamic/treatment response biomarker to be used in clinical trials and possibly clinical practice.3 A number of studies have looked into these potential applications.4-8