Evaluation of 4 different assays to determine antibodies to interferon-beta

Aim of the study: Betainterferons (IFN-beta) are the most widely used drugs to treat multiple sclerosis (MS). However a significant proportion of patients develop neutralizing antibodies (NABs) to IFN-beta, which may interfere with treatment efficacy. Many different assays are in use to detect and quantify antibodies to IFN-beta and their neutralizing activity. However, systematic comparative analyses, which address the inter assay-variation, are largely missing. Methods: Here we report the results of a blinded comparative analysis of 4 assays evaluated with 250 blinded samples in two different centers. A wester…