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Role of Immunological Markers in the Diagnosis, Treatment and Follow-Up of Human Neurocysticercosis

Azharuddin M Malik, Uwais Ashraf and Nasar Abdali

Neurocysticercosis is the commonest parasitic disease of the nervous system. Its clinical manifestations are highly variable ranging from asymptomatic disease to recurrent seizures and multisystem involvement. The imaging findings of neurocysticercosis although typical are not diagnostic for the disease and can be confused lesions of tuberculomas. To circumvent the diagnostic difficulty various serological tests have been tried. Most of the early serological tests were limited by low sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis. Recently better antibody based assays like Enzyme Linked Immuno Electro Transfer Blot (EITB) have vastly improved the specificity of diagnosis, but sensitivity esp. in single cystic lesions still remains suboptimal. Further advances in the field of serodiagnosis of neurocysticercosis, especially focusing on validation of emerging techniques of diagnosis, will be required before the can be implemented for routine use.