Objective: Narcolepsy is a clinical syndrome of unknown etiology that is characterized by uncontrollable and repetitive sleep attacks, the sudden temporary loss of muscle tone limb and trunk muscles that often occur during emotional reactions such as laughing, fear, or crying (cataplexy), sleep paralysis and hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations. Neopterin is a pteridine derivative, which is produced by T cells as a result of the activation of the cellular immune system, primarily with IFN-? stimulation.
Methods: In this study, we aimed to compare the serum neopterin levels of 45 patients, who were diagnosed to have narcolepsy with healthy control group that consists of 42 individuals.
Results: Both groups were similar in terms of socio-demographic features. The mean serum neopterin level was 8.73±7.04 nmol / L in the patient group and 5.94±1.76 nmol / L in the control group. It was found that, the difference of serum neopterin levels between the patient group and control group was statistically significant (p<0.05).
Conclusions: Previous studies on immune-genetic aspects of narcolepsy have shown significant progress in this regard. Although the etiology of the disease is still not clearly known, there is evidence that immune system induced pathologies might be a possible etiological factor. Our finding of high levels of neopterin in narcolepsy group supports this idea.