The Importance of Defining the Paraneoplastic Neurologic Disorders

The paraneoplastic neurologic disorders are models of the way in which rare diseases can shed light on common clinical problems. Paraneoplastic neurologic disorders, which are neurologic degenerative disorders that occur in patients with neoplasms outside the nervous system, provide compelling examples of antitumor immunity and autoimmune neurologic disorders, and they have been defined through collaboration between clinicians and researchers. The most recent demonstration of such a collaboration is the study by Voltz and colleagues in this issue of the Journal.1 They report that some of the clinically diverse syndromes of limbic and brain-stem encephalitis can now be definitively classified . . .