This is a great description.
This week the FDA approved the initiation of a phase III clinical trial of the oncology supportive care drug Tocilizumab (Actemra – Genentech) for the treatment of hospitalized adult patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. Tocilizumab is a humanized anti-interleukin (IL)-6 receptor monoclonal antibody, which blocks IL-6-mediated signal transduction. Given the crucial role of IL-6 in stimulating …
Autoimmune encephalitis (AE) is an important and treatable cause of acute encephalitis. Diagnosis of AE in a developing child is challenging because of overlap in clinical presentations with other diseases and the complexity of normal behavior changes. Existing diagnostic criteria for adult AE require modification to be applied to children, who differ from adults in …
AE is often diagnosed by the detection of specific antibodies against different neuronal surface antigens in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the blood or both. However, the antibody testing usually takes several days. A group at Ulm University in Germany reviewed the basic CSF findings of 1,305 patients with the 10 most important AE subtypes, for the …
The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry is holding its 66thAnnual Meeting, October 14-19 in Chicago, IL. On Wednesday, October 16, the focus will be on Autoimmune Brain Disorders. Autoimmune brain disorders are a spectrum of illnesses characterized by inflammation of the central nervous system (CNS). Child and adolescent psychiatrists must become familiar with …
Early diagnosis of AE allows for aggressive treatment, which greatly improves recovery outcomes. On the contrary, delayed diagnosis and treatment can lead to permanent brain injury or even loss of life. In literature, no work has been published which compares clinical, radiological and laboratory characteristics of patients with definite autoantibody-positive AE (AE+) and autoantibody-negative AE (AE-). …
A group of researchers from the Autoimmune Neurology Group at the University of Oxford led by Dr. Sarosh Irani, recently published an article in the Lancet Psychiatry, noting that a focus on the psychopathology is likely the most effective way to promote prompt recognition of NMDAR-antibody encephalitis. NMDAR-antibody encephalitis is an autoantibody-mediated disease that typically presents …
Psychiatrists play a pivotal role in the diagnosis and treatment of AE. As psychiatric symptoms often dominate the symptoms that occur at onset of this disease, patients may present initially to a psychiatrist who are tasked with identifying abnormal features of psychosis presentations, including alterations in mental status, seizures, and dysautonomia, which may prompt consideration …
This is a two-day international meeting on 5-6 June 2019 for clinicians and scientists looking to appreciate the breadth of translational autoimmune neurology. This inaugural meeting will cover the clinical features of CNS and PNS diseases, methodological aspects of immunological assays, applied T and B cell pathophysiology, and questions relating to immunological tolerance. By being …
Late last year a systematic review of AE syndromes, diagnosis, and treatment was published in Frontiers in Neurology by two physicians in Austria, and reviewed by physicians in Australia and the US (Mayo Clinic). We felt it may be useful as an up-to-date reference. Once again, the importance of early recognition of AE with prompt …
A group of physicians from Germany have recently published an article in Seminars in Immunopathology, noting significant differences in the incidence of autoimmune diseases of the central nervous system in males versus females. They stated diseases such as multiple sclerosis, neuromyelitis optica and autoimmune encephalitis are more likely to be found in females. Some examples …
