Macarena Villagrán-García, Antonio Farina, Joaquín Arzalluz-Luque, Lucia Campetella, Sergio Muñiz-Castrillo, Marie Benaiteau, Elise Peter, Pauline Dumez, Valentin Wucher, Maroua Dhairi, Géraldine Picard, Marie Rafiq, Dimitri Psimaras, Véronique Rogemond, Bastien Joubert, Jérôme Honnorat
Journal of neurology 2024 JunDysautonomia has been associated with paraneoplastic neurological syndrome (PNS)-related mortality in anti-Hu PNS, but its frequency and spectrum remain ill-defined. We describe anti-Hu patients with dysautonomia, estimate its frequency, and compare them to patients without dysautonomia. Patients with anti-Hu antibodies diagnosed in the study centre (1990-2022) were retrospectively reviewed; those with autonomic signs and symptoms were identified. Among 477 anti-Hu patients, 126 (26%) had dysautonomia (the only PNS manifestation in 7/126, 6%); gastrointestinal (82/126, 65%), cardiovascular (64/126, 51%), urogenital (24/126, 19%), pupillomotor/secretomotor (each, 11/126, 9%), and central hypoventilation (10/126, 8%). Patients with isolated CNS involvement less frequently had gastrointestinal dysautonomia than those with peripheral (alone or combined with CNS) involvement (7/23, 30% vs. 31/44, 70% vs. 37/52, 71%; P = 0.002); while more frequently central hypoventilation (7/23, 30% vs. 1/44, 2.3% vs. 2/52, 4%; P < 0.001) and/or cardiovascular alterations (18/23, 78% vs. 20/44, 45% vs. 26/52, 50%; P = 0.055). Median [95% CI] overall survival was not significantly different between patients with (37 [17; 91] months) or without dysautonomia (28 [22; 39] months; P = 0.78). Cardiovascular dysautonomia (HR: 1.57, 95% CI [1.05; 2.36]; P = 0.030) and central hypoventilation (HR: 3.51, 95% CI [1.54; 8.01]; P = 0.003) were associated with a higher risk of death, and secretomotor dysautonomia a lower risk (HR: 0.28, 95% CI [0.09; 0.89]; P = 0.032). Patients with cardiovascular dysautonomia dying ≤ 1 year from clinical onset had severe CNS (21/27, 78%), frequently brainstem (13/27, 48%), involvement. Anti-Hu PNS dysautonomia is rarely isolated, frequently gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and urogenital. CNS dysfunction, particularly brainstem, associates with lethal cardiovascular alterations and central hypoventilation, while peripheral involvement preferentially associates with gastrointestinal or secretomotor dysautonomia, being the latest more indolent. © 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany.
Macarena Villagrán-García, Antonio Farina, Joaquín Arzalluz-Luque, Lucia Campetella, Sergio Muñiz-Castrillo, Marie Benaiteau, Elise Peter, Pauline Dumez, Valentin Wucher, Maroua Dhairi, Géraldine Picard, Marie Rafiq, Dimitri Psimaras, Véronique Rogemond, Bastien Joubert, Jérôme Honnorat. Dysautonomia in anti-Hu paraneoplastic neurological syndromes. Journal of neurology. 2024 Jun;271(6):3359-3369
PMID: 38494470
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