GFAP and brain neoplasm: 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.