Managing non-paraneoplastic Lambert–Eaton myasthenic syndrome: Clinical characteristics in 25 German patients

Received 8 June 2009; received in revised form 1 September 2009; accepted 25 September 2009. published online 15 October 2009.

Abstract

In about 40% of patients LEMS is not a paraneoplastic phenomenon (NT-LEMS). Several clinical aspects important to these patients remain open, especially the question when a LEMS can definitely be diagnosed as NT-LEMS. Here we describe a series of 25 German NT-LEMS patients regarding their clinical characteristics, duration of symptoms, value of serological markers, paraneoplastic antibodies and FDG-PET/CT. Furthermore, we discuss the current diagnostic criteria of NT-LEMS.

Keywords: LEMS, FDG-PET, Non-paraneoplastic

a Institute for Clinical Neuroimmunology, Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, 81377 Munich, Germany

b Department of Palliative Care, University of Cologne, 50924 Cologne, Germany

c Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, 81377 Munich, Germany

d Clinic for Neurology and Neurophysiology Christophsbad, 73035 Göppingen, Germany

Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 89 7095 4436; fax: +49 89 7095 7435.

1 Present address: Clinic of Nuclear Medicine, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.

PII: S0165-5728(09)00385-3

doi:10.1016/j.jneuroim.2009.09.017

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