memo - Magazine of European Medical Oncology

, Volume 5, Issue 3, pp 197–200 | Cite as

Paraneoplastic neurologic disorders: a brief overview

short review
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

Immune-mediated paraneoplastic neurologic disorders (PND) may affect any part of the nervous system, and can mimic many noncancer associated disorders. The availability of diagnostic tests based on the presence of specific anti-neuronal antibodies facilitates diagnosis and can suggest treatment strategies. Once thought to be poorly responsive to therapies, it is now recognized that there is a subgroup of PND, mostly associated with antibodies to antigens on the neuronal cell surface that are highly treatment responsive. For all PND, identification and treatment of the underlying tumor is the most effective step in the potential control or stabilization of the neurological disorder.

Keywords

Paraneoplastic Neurologic Autoimmunity Antibodies 
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Notes

Conflict of interest

Dr. Dalmau holds a patent for a NMDA receptor autoantibody test and has received license fees from Euroimmun, Inc. Drs. Dalmau and Rosenfeld hold a patent for a Ma2 autoantibody test and receive royalty payments from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Wien 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of NeurologyHospital Clínic/IDIBAPSBarcelonaSpain
  2. 2.Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA) at Institut d’Investigació Biomèdica August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Service of NeurologyHospital Clínic, University of BarcelonaBarcelonaSpain

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