Autoimmune encephalitis (AE) is a novel form of encephalitis associated with antibodies to cell-surface or synaptic proteins. Epileptic seizures act as the predominant manifestation of AE which are triggered by interaction between kinds of antibodies and antigens on cell-surface or intracellular. Patients with AE-related epilepsy are insensitive to antiepileptic drugs but sensitive to immunotherapy. Early initiation of immunotherapy can significantly improve the prognosis. To date, there are few reports on the treatment plan of antiepileptic drug to the patients with AE-related epilepsy. In this review we report the most relevant data about the morbidity, pathogenesis and treatment of AE-related epilepsy with aim of providing better treatment options.

The clinical manifestations of anti- N-methyl-daspartate (NMDA) receptor encephalitis and viral encephalitis are similar but the treatments and prognoses are different, so the early differentiation of the two diseases is very important. Early diagnosis is affected by delayed antibody detection and false negative detection, while routine auxiliary tests lack specificity; therefore, they have limited value in identification. The 18F-fulorodeoxyglucose (FDG) marked positron emission computed tomography (PETCT) is highly sensitive to abnormal cerebral metabolism in the early stage of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, showing a characteristic metabolic pattern of frontal or temporal lobe increase metabolism and occipital decrease metabolism. The number of patients who underwent 18F FDG PETCT examination for viral encephalitis was small; different kinds of viral encephalitis show different brain metabolism, but there was no characteristic hypometabolism of the occipital lobe. This paper reviews the cerebral metabolic characteristics of 18F-FDG PETCT in anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis and viral encephalitis.

Anti- N-methyl- D-aspartic acid (NMDA) receptor encephalitis is an autoimmune encephalitis. Most patients have a good prognosis, but a small number of patients have memory impairment and other sequelaes. Early immunotherapy is a key factor for good prognosis of patients with this disease. However, a key problem in the treatment of this disease is the lack of biomarkers for disease monitoring and prognosis assessment. Therefore, it is positive for guiding the diagnosis and treatment and evaluating the prognosis to find biomarkers that can reflect the disease. Here, biological factors abnormally elevated in cerebrospinal fluid of patients with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis are reviewed, and biological factors with potential as biomarkers are summarized.

Anti- N-methyl- D-aspartic acid (NMDA) receptor encephalitis is an autoimmune encephalitis mediated by anti-NMDA receptor antibody. At present, the diagnosis of the disease depends mainly on typical clinical symptoms and detection of specific antibodies in cerebrospinal fluid. Early and timely treatment can curb the disease progression and improve the prognosis of the disease. However, because of the atypical clinical manifestations of patients and long waiting time for antibody detection, early identification is difficult. Imaging equipment is more popular in primary hospitals in China, and it is easier to perform imaging examination for suspected patients in the early stage; therefore, this article aims to review the imaging characteristics and current imaging research progress of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis in recent years, so as to improve clinicians' understanding and early recognition of this disease.

Objective:To investigate the effects of total-body PET/CT imaging with short acquisition time on image quality and lesion detectability in lungs and parenchymal organs.Methods:Sixty patients (31 males, 29 females, age (61.1±11.8) years) with pulmonary nodules (PN) and 53 patients (29 males, 24 females, age (56.7±17.2) years) with parenchymal organ lesions (POL) who underwent total-body PET/CT imaging in the First Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University between October 2021 and April 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. The acquisition time with PET was 600 s, and the reconstructed images were divided into 6 groups based on different duration (30, 60, 120, 180, 300 and 600 s), namely G30, G60, G120, G180, G300 and G600 groups. The subjective analysis was carried out with the 5-point Likert scale in 3 aspects: the overall impression of image quality, noise, and lesion conspicuity. The objective analysis indicators included the SUV mean of the mediastinal blood pool (MBP); the SUV mean, standard deviation (SD) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the liver; SUV max and target-to-background ratio (TBR) of the lesions. Differences of the indicators among 6 groups were analyzed by Friedman test with Bonferroni correction. G600 served as the reference for the other 5 groups to test their lesion detectability. Results:The subjective image quality of different groups for PN and that of G120, G180, G300 groups for POL could meet the needs of clinical diagnosis in terms of the overall image quality, noise, and lesion conspicuity (all scores>3). There was no significant difference in the SUV mean of MBP among different time groups (median for PN: 1.52-1.56, median for POL: 1.35-1.47; χ2 values: 10.23, 11.02, both P>0.05). Difference was not found in SUV mean of the liver either (median for PN: 2.51-2.56, median for POL: 2.33-2.40; χ2 values: 8.35, 8.93, both P>0.05). The liver SD significantly increased along with the shortened acquisition time ( χ2 values: 400.99, 400.00, both P<0.001; z values: from -16.90 to -3.15, all P<0.003). The SNR significantly decreased along with the shortened acquisition time ( χ2 values: 397.32, 400.00, both P<0.001; z values: 2.98-16.90, all P<0.003). The SUV max (median for PN: 3.55-4.01, median for POL: 5.77-6.08; χ2 values: 8.58, 3.02, both P>0.05) and TBR (median for PN: 2.42-2.81, median for POL: 2.36-2.45; χ2 values: 9.83, 3.69, both P>0.05) of lesion were not significantly different among 6 groups. Taking G600 group as a reference, the lesion detection rates were 100% in G30 group and other 4 groups for PN (81/81) and in G120, G180, G300 groups for POL (80/80). Conclusion:Total-body PET/CT imaging with acquisition time of 30 s for lungs and that with acquisition time of 120 s for parenchymal organs are feasible for clinical use, with the PET image quality and lesion detectability maintained.