Recommended diagnostic criteria for paraneoplastic neurological syndromes

Paraneoplastic neurological syndromes are remote complications of systemic malignancy, characterised clinically by subacute progression to profound neurological disability and pathologically by destruction of neurones, with or without an accompanying inflammatory response.1 Onset of symptoms may occur more than 2 years prior to diagnosis of the accompanying neoplasm. An important finding over recent years has been that many affected patients have serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) antibodies that are reactive with internal neuronal antigens.1,2 In some cases, there is strong correlation between patterns of antibody reactivity and specific tumours, and tumours from some affected patients have been found to express proteins …