Paediatric autoimmune encephalopathies: Clinical features, laboratory investigations and outcomes in patients with or without antibodies to known central nervous system autoantigens

Yael Hacohen, Sukhvir Wright, Patrick Waters, Shakti Agrawal, Lucinda Carr, Helen Cross, Carlos De Sousa, Catherine DeVile, Penny Fallon, Rajat Gupta, Tammy Hedderly, Elaine Hughes, Tim Kerr, Karine Lascelles, Jean Pierre Lin, Sunny Philip, Keith Pohl, Prab Prabahkar, Martin Smith, Ruth WilliamsAntonia Clarke, Cheryl Hemingway, Evangeline Wassmer, Angela Vincent*, Ming J. Lim

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Objective: To report the clinical and investigative features of children with a clinical diagnosis of probable autoimmune encephalopathy, both with and without antibodies to central nervous system antigens. Method: Patients with encephalopathy plus one or more of neuropsychiatric symptoms, seizures, movement disorder or cognitive dysfunction, were identified from 111 paediatric serum samples referred from five tertiary paediatric neurology centres to Oxford for antibody testing in 2007-2010. A blinded clinical review panel identified 48 patients with a diagnosis of probable autoimmune encephalitis whose features are described. All samples were tested/retested for antibodies to N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR), VGKC-complex, LGI1, CASPR2 and contactin-2, GlyR, D1R, D2R, AMPAR, GABA(B)R and glutamic acid decarboxylase. Results Seizures (83%), behavioural change (63%), confusion (50%), movement disorder (38%) and hallucinations (25%) were common. 52% required intensive care support for seizure control or profound encephalopathy. An acute infective organism (15%) or abnormal cerebrospinal fluid (32%), EEG (70%) or MRI (37%) abnormalities were found. One 14-year-old girl had an ovarian teratoma. Serum antibodies were detected in 21/48 (44%) patients: NMDAR 13/48 (27%), VGKC-complex 7/48(15%) and GlyR 1/48(2%). Antibody negative patients shared similar clinical features to those who had specific antibodies detected. 18/34 patients (52%) who received immunotherapy made a complete recovery compared to 4/14 (28%) who were not treated; reductions in modified Rankin Scale for children scores were more common following immunotherapies. Antibody status did not appear to in fluence the treatment effect. Conclusions: Our study outlines the common clinical and paraclinical features of children and adolescents with probable autoimmune encephalopathies. These patients, irrespective of positivity for the known antibody targets, appeared to benefit from immunotherapies and further antibody targets may be defined in the future.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)748-755
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry
Volume84
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2013

Bibliographical note

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

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