Antibodies to axonal neurofilaments in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other organic dementias.

Antibodies reacting with neurofilament proteins were detected by indirect immunofluorescence in the sera from 6 out of 10 patients with verified Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), in 4 out of 8 cases of Alzheimer's disease (AD), in a variable percentage (29.4-42.8%) of sera from patients (n = 46) with other dementias of organic or infectious origin and in 5 out of 30 asymptomatic relatives of CJD patients. The occurrence of this antibody did not correlate with the duration or with any other clinical manifestation of CJD. The applicability of the test as differential-diagnostic marker appears limited. The later development of CJD and mental or nervous disease in 3 of 5 asymptomatic relatives with positive serological reaction suggest that the method although nonspecific, may be of certain value in the search for persons at higher risk to develop a degenerative disorder of CNS.