Table 5.

Disease activity related to knowledge of CSF cestode antigen status level

CSF status		Inactive	Active	Not assessable**
Serial lumbar CSF values*	17
No detectable antigen	13	10	0	3
Borderline-low antigen	2	1	1	0
Elevated antigen	1	1
High antigen^	1	0	1	0
Single lumbar CSF value	8
No detectable antigen post treatment	2	2	0	0
Elevated but obtained before or during treatment#	5	5	0	0
Elevated post treatment$	1	1	0	0
Untreated, calcified lesions%	2	3	0	0
No CSF obtained	7	7	0	0
Lost to follow up	1	0	0	1
Total evaluable (%)*	35	29 (82.9)	2 (7.2)	4 (11.4)
Treated patients, not lost to follow-up	30	26 (86.7)	1 (3.2)	3 (10.0)

* Last lumbar CSF cestode antigen level just before or after stopping cysticidal treatment in all but the patient with high antigen^ who has ongoing active disease. Includes 2 assessments in one patient who relapsed and was then successfully retreated. Includes one patient with calcified suprasellar lesion, positive antigen that reverted to negative after removal.

** Less than year follow-up post treatment.

^ Uncured, asymptomatic, MRI stable without obvious involvement despite years of treatment, now on combined high dose albendazole and praziquantel without immunosuppressive medications.

# Positive antigen too early to be predictive or interpretable. One patient had an undefined non tumor proliferative lesions in the spine and sella.

$ Cisterna magna cyst removed 5 weeks earlier. Untreated.

% One patient with a calcified suprasellar lesion had positive antigen that became negative after removal. A second patient had negative antigen and a third patient was treated about 2 weeks for an accompanying viable parenchymal lesion and no CSF was obtained.

*** Comparison of the disease activity at the end of treatment in relation to the presence of any antigen in the CSF at or after treatment showed that lack of antigen predicted inactive disease, P ≤ 0.01 (Fisher’s exact test).