Immunological bases of paraneoplastic cerebellar...
The central nervous system (CNS) can be the target of deleterious cellular and humoral immune responses in context of infectious, degenerative, or autoimmune diseases. Among these immune-mediated CNS disorders, autoimmune diseases are wide and heterogeneous, occurring both in paraneoplastic and non-paraneoplastic context. Although the autoantibodies are considered faithful diagnostic biomarkers of paraneoplastic neurological disorders, their pathogenic contribution, when the target antigens are intracellular, is uncertain.
The precise mechanisms responsible for disruption of self-tolerance to neuronal self-antigens in the cancer setting and the pathways involved in pathogenesis within the cerebellum remain to be fully deciphered. Although the occurrence of PCD is rare, the risk for such severe complication may increase with wider use of cancer immunotherapy, notably immune checkpoint blockade.
