DB'S MEDICAL RANTS

Internal medicine, American health care, and especially medical education

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Paraneoplastic antibody screening

Can you teach an old dog new tricks?  Apparently this old dog learns slowly, but is capable of learning.  Over the past 2 years I have listened to fascinating case presentations that involved paraneoplastic screening.

If you are clueless, I found this website – Paraneoplastic Neurological Disorders

While this is helpful, it may not help most physicians.  This is my understanding (and please correct me if I am incorrect)

This bucket contains a variety of neurological disorders:

“Paraneoplastic” means that the neurologic problem is not caused by the cancer itself, but by disturbances that the cancer causes in the body, particularly in the immune system.

That definition is very helpful because some of the screening panels also provide results that might come from an auto-immune condition.

While I am still learning, I believe that many physicians do not consider these possibilities at all.  Please educate me, are you aware of these syndromes?

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