Cerebrospinal Fluid Ciliary Neurotrophic Factor and Tissue Inhibitor of Metalloproteinase 1 in the Prognostication of Guillian Barre Syndrome

Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) is an acute neuropathy characterized by varying prognoses. To identify predictive biomarkers, we conducted a prospective observational study involving 110 GBS patients. We focused on assessing the levels of two proteins associated with neurogeneration, namely CNTF (ciliary neurotrophic factor) and TIMP1 (tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1), in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of GBS patients. Measurements were taken prior to and following the second week of illness. We found that the increase in CNTF and TIMP1, as determined by the ratio of post-2nd week CNTF levels to pre-2nd week CNTF levels, exhibited a positive correlation with improvements in the Medical Research Council (MRC) sum score at both 4 weeks and 6 months. Based on these findings, we conclude that both CNTF and TIMP1 can serve as valuable prognostic biomarkers in GBS.