In the spring of 2020, the Foundation expressed its strong support for the first-ever Clinical Trial for a promising new drug to treat anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. Fast forward to the Fall of 2021, when we learned that the Trial was approved and will be funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
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Background and ObjectivesThe Clinical Assessment Scale in Autoimmune Encephalitis (CASE) is a scale for assessing severity in autoimmune encephalitis. We aimed to validate the CASE score in a Chinese population and evaluate its clinical significance.MethodsPatients diagnosed with autoimmune…
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ICYMI, please find a link to the Breaking News Announcement, regarding the ExTINGUISH Clinical Trial which we made on December 1, 2021. …Read More…
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Our study has several limitations. Most people develop detectable SARS-CoV-2 antibodies 7–14 days following infection, so patients who developed neurologic symptoms early in the infection course might have eluded our surveillance. In addition, we only systematically evaluated sera collected for AE evaluation only, and not sera referred for other indications. Clinically, we only evaluated those patients neurologically referred, and thus it is possible that our study did not account for patients with mild self-resolving AE who went unreferred. Given the ubiquity of the virus, relative infrequent cases of AE encountered in our cohorts, and the heterogeneity of clinical presentations therein, we are not able to exclude the possibility that AE occurred as coincident disease rather than as a direct consequence of the virus. Despite these caveats, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity to mechanistically study postinfectious encephalitis. Consistent with our findings, typically neither IgG biomarkers nor virus particles are detected in CSF.1,27,-,29 A CXCL8 predominant cytokine release syndrome has been described, supportive of periphery-originating, SARS-CoV-2 reactive, macrophage- and neutrophil-initiated inflammation.1,29 Given the usual absence of disease-specific IgG markers in postinfectious AE, future studies should focus on systematic collection of serum, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and CSF to investigate for diagnostically and pathophysiologically informative cellular and cytokine signatures.
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ObjectiveTo address the effects of high dose steroids on in-hospital infection and neurologic outcome in anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (anti-NMDAR) encephalitis patients.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed the clinical data of anti-NMDAR encephalitis patients in West China Hospital, the Third…
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The discovery of biomarkers in rare diseases is of paramount importance to allow a better diagnosis, improve predictions of outcomes, and prompt the development of new treatments. Anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis is a rare autoimmune …
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FYI, there are only two PAO’s that are official partners of the ExTINGUISH Trial. They are the Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis Foundation and the Autoimmune Encephalitis …Read More…
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We present a case of a patient with positive N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) IgG antibodies in their serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) associated with neuroborreliosis. Clinically, the patient presented with symptoms of confusion, as well as behavioral and speech impairments.
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