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Updated: Mar 21, 2026
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Published on: November 17, 2020
IL-17 production by CSF lymphocytes as a biomarker for cerebral vasculitis
Vivien Thom1, Sabrina Schmid1, Mathias Gelderblom1
1Departments of Immunology (V.T., R.H., M.K., E.T.), Neurology (V.T., S.S., M.G., S.S., G.T., C.G., T.M.), Neuropathology (C.B., M.G.), and Medical Biometry and Epidemiology (K.W.), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf; and IME Screening Port (O.K., O.P.), Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, Hamburg, Germany.
Objective:
To explore the possibility of using interleukin-17 (IL-17) production by CD4+ T cells in the CSF as a potential biomarker for cerebral vasculitis in stroke patients.
Methods:
In this consecutive case study, we performed prospective analysis of CSF and blood in patients admitted to a university medical center with symptoms of stroke and suspected cerebral vasculitis. Flow cytometry was performed for intracellular detection of inflammatory cytokines in peripheral blood lymphocytes and expanded T cells from CSF.
Results:
CSF CD4+ lymphocytes from patients with cerebral vasculitis showed significantly higher levels of the proinflammatory cytokine IL-17 compared to patients with stroke not due to vasculitis or with other, noninflammatory neurologic diseases. There was no difference in the production of interferon-γ in the CSF and no overall differences in the relative frequencies of peripheral immune cells.
Conclusions:
Intracellular IL-17 in CSF cells is potentially useful in discriminating cerebral vasculitis as a rare cause in patients presenting with ischemic stroke.
Classification Of Evidence:
This study provides Class II evidence that an increased proportion of IL-17-producing CD4+ cells in CSF of patients presenting with stroke symptoms is indicative of cerebral vasculitis (sensitivity 73%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 39-94%; specificity 100%, 95% CI 74%-100%).
