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Updated: Oct 26, 2025
Induction and Clinical Scoring of Chronic-Relapsing Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis
Published on: July 4, 2007
Seasonal variation in autoimmune encephalitis: A multi-center retrospective study
Qi-Lun Lai1, Meng-Ting Cai2, Yang Zheng2
1Department of Neurology, Affiliated Zhejiang Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to examine the seasonal distribution in clinical onset of autoimmune encephalitis (AE) in a multi-center cohort in China.
Methods:
This retrospective study consecutively recruited patients with new-onset definite neuronal surface antibody-associated AE between January 2015 and December 2020 from 3 tertiary hospitals. Demographic and clinical characteristics of the participants were comprehensively collected. Statistical analyses were performed using R.
Results:
Of the 184 patients of AE in our database, 149 (81.0%) were included in the final analysis. The median age of onset was 40.0 years, and 66 (44.3%) patients were female. AE predominantly started in autumn (47, 31.5%) and summer (43, 28.9%) months. Summer-autumn predominance of the clinical onsets was also present in the anti-N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis group (54, 60.0%) and anti-leucine-rich glioma inactivated 1 (LGI1) encephalitis group (20, 76.9%). No obvious seasonal variations were observed among gender, onset age, disease duration, prodromal symptoms, clinical type of initial symptoms, and disease severity by the time of admission.
Conclusion:
This study suggested summer-autumn predominance of the clinical onsets in patients with AE, especially anti-NMDAR and anti-LGI1 encephalitis. Therefore, clinicians should have a high index of suspicion for AE in encephalopathy patients in summer and autumn period.
