1 But the antibody in Slattery's spinal fluid signified something more sinister: An immune response to her cancer, theoretically arrested more than a year earlier, was so ferocious that it had chewed through the blood-brain barrier and into her cerebellum. Specifically, it had gnawed on Purkinje neurons that, like ovarian tumor cells, also express cdr2. Slattery had paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration.
PCD is one of about a dozen paraneoplastic neurologic disorders (PNDs).2 Some, including PCD, are defined by an immune response to a malignancy that remains at a distance from the brain. PCD, associated with ovarian, breast, and small-cell lung cancer, is rare; accepted estimates put it at 1 in 10,000 cancer patients.
Significant improvement in its neurological condition is also rare. More often than not, the level of disability hits a plateau within just a few weeks. The menu of symptoms ...
