[Paraneoplastic neurologic autoimmune diseases]

All complications of tumor disease that do not result from the tumor itself, its metastases, or vascular, infectious, metabolic, or therapy-related causes are referred to as paraneoplastic neurologic syndromes. This earlier represented an excluding diagnosis and the association was established only statistically, but since the first description of the anti-Hu antibody in 1985, we know that around 2/3 of patients with paraneoplastic disorders display highly specific antibody reactions in the serum. These reactions not only prove a paraneoplastic etiology in almost 100% of cases, but, due to their highly specific associations with certain tumor types, also aid tumor detection in patients whose tumor types are not known.