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Updated: May 8, 2026

Isolating Central Nervous System Tissues and Associated Meninges for the Downstream Analysis of Immune cells
Published on: May 19, 2020
Cerebrospinal fluid interleukin-6 in central nervous system inflammatory diseases
Alexandre Wullschleger1, Viktoria Kapina, Nicolas Molnarfi
1Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Division of Neurology, University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Background:
Interleukin (IL)-6 is recognised as an important cytokine involved in inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system (CNS).
Objective:
To perform a large retrospective study designed to test cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) IL-6 levels in the context of neurological diseases, and evaluate its usefulness as a biomarker to help discriminate multiple sclerosis (MS) from other inflammatory neurological diseases (OIND).
Patients And Methods:
We analyzed 374 CSF samples for IL-6 using a quantitative enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Groups tested were composed of demyelinating diseases of the CNS (DD, n = 117), including relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS, n = 65), primary progressive MS (PPMS, n = 11), clinically isolated syndrome (CIS, n = 11), optic neuritis (ON, n = 30); idiopathic transverse myelitis (ITM, n = 10); other inflammatory neurological diseases (OIND, n = 35); and non-inflammatory neurological diseases (NIND, n = 212). Differences between groups were analysed using Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U-test.
Results:
CSF IL-6 levels exceeded the positivity cut-off of 10 pg/ml in 18 (51.4%) of the 35 OIND samples, but in only three (3.9%) of the 76 MS samples collected. CSF IL-6 was negative for all NIND samples tested (0/212). IL-6 cut-off of 10 pg/ml offers 96% sensitivity to exclude MS.
Conclusion:
CSF IL-6 may help to differentiate MS from its major differential diagnosis group, OIND.
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