Frontiers in immunology
Neuronal-surface antibodies are uncommon in patients with a final diagnosis of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis
By Qadi N, Aldakheel A and Shosha E.
Abstract
Background
Neuronal antibodies detected during evaluation of rapidly progressive dementia may indicate treatable autoimmune encephalitis or incidental seroreactivity in prion disease. We estimated their frequency in sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), separately from diagnostic yield in suspected CJD.
Methods
Under a registered protocol (PROSPERO CRD420261458659), MEDLINE/PubMed, Embase and CENTRAL were searched on 12 July 2026 and with expanded antibody terms on 13 September 2026. Screening, extraction and JBI appraisal were performed independently in duplicate with third-reviewer adjudication. The primary outcome was neuronal-surface/synaptic antibody positivity in datasets with standardized testing. We report the aggregate proportion with an exact 95% confidence interval and model-based summaries from logistic-normal GLMM and beta-binomial models, which estimate different quantities.