Carcinoma associated paraneoplastic peripheral neuropathies in patients with and without anti-onconeural antibodies

Abstract

Paraneoplastic neuropathies associated with carcinoma are heterogeneous disorders. Neuropathies occurring with a long latency with tumours probably resulted from a coincidental association. Neuropathies which occurred within a few years of the tumour evolved rapidly and corresponded mostly to inflammatory disorders. As dysimmune neuropathies are probably paraneoplastic in a limited number of cases, patients with these disorders should probably not be investigated systematically for carcinoma in the absence of anti-onconeural antibodies, except when the neuropathy is associated with encephalomyelitis and probably with vasculitis. Questions remain concerning CIDP.