For instance, dexamethasone, often prescribed to brain tumour patients, decreases monocyte numbers (Schuld et al., 2001) but had no significant effect on the relative presence of GFAP+CD16+ monocytes, supporting the robustness and translatability of the here presented novel diagnostic strategy for the detection of brain tissue damage as caused by glioma, brain metastasis and AIS. The gene discussed is GFAP; the disease is glioma.