Laboratory tests for autoimmune encephalitis

Autoimmune encephalitis (AE) is a kind of newly discovered autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. The cause of autoimmune encephalitis is complex and symptoms are lacking in specificity. There are many difficulties in diagnosis of AE. The clinical diagnosis of AE should be combined with its clinical characteristics, the detection of AE-related autoantibodies and laboratory-related tests, electroencephalogram, head imaging, et al. AE-related autoantibody detection is more helpful in the diagnosis, some of the autoantibodies also have a strong hint of potential tumor in the body, and can help to determine the treatment and prognosis.(Chin J Lab Med, 2017, 40: 928-932) Key words: Encephalitis; Hashimoto disease; Autoantibodies; Clinical laboratory techniques