Paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration with anti-Yo antibodies associated with metastatic uveal melanoma

Abstract

Paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration (PCD) is characterized by subacute development of pancerebellar dysfunction as a remote effect of a systemic cancer and usually develops in patients affected by gynecological tumors. Uveal melanoma is a very rare disease with a severe prognosis.A 58-year-old man affected by uveal melanoma developed anti-Yo positive paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration (PCD) 42months after the initial diagnosis. The onset and worsening of the neurological symptoms were parallel to the course of liver metastasis.To our knowledge this is the first case of PCD in a patient with uveal melanoma. We speculate that the cerebellar degeneration-related protein 2 (CDR2), to which the anti-Yo antibodies are directed, may have been expressed in melanoma cells and conferred proliferative advantage to the disease.