Novel auto-antibody syndromes

Excerpt

The importance of aciclovir in the treatment of viral encephalitis caused by herpes simplex overshadows the field of encephalitis and as a result some clinicians may erroneously consider the diagnosis of encephalitis to be synonymous with a viral infection. However, it has long been a source of frustration that in the majority of cases, where evidence of the herpes simplex virus DNA in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is not obtainable, we fail to identify a specific aetiology for the patient’s illness. It is against this back-cloth that the recent identification of a range of non-infectious causes for encephalitis has made such a significant impact on clinical neurology. …