% IMPORTANT: The following is UTF-8 encoded. This means that in the presence
% of non-ASCII characters, it will not work with BibTeX 0.99 or older.
% Instead, you should use an up-to-date BibTeX implementation like “bibtex8” or
% “biber”.
@ARTICLE{Wickel:285252,
author = {Wickel, Jonathan and Chung, Ha-Yeun and Konen, Franz Felix
and Rössling, Rosa and Bertolini, Annikki and Kraft, Andrea
and Siebenbrodt, Kai and Bittner, Stefan and Juranek,
Aleksandra and Brokbals, Mosche and Räuber, Saskia and
Klausewitz, Jaqueline and Pfeffer, Lena K and Scherag,
André and Menge, Til and Finke, Alexander and Doppler,
Kathrin and Urbanek, Christian and Bien, Christian G and
Seifert-Held, Thomas and Hoffmann, Frank and Wandinger,
Klaus-Peter and Tauber, Simone C and Süße, Marie and
Lewerenz, Jan and Madlener, Marie and Rostasy, Kevin and
Prüss, Harald and Sühs, Kurt-Wolfram and Kümpfel, Tania
and Thaler, Franziska S and Leypoldt, Frank and Geis,
Christian},
collaboration = {group, GENERATE study},
title = {{R}educed {H}ospital {I}ncidence of {A}utoimmune
{E}ncephalitis {D}uring the {COVID}-19 {P}andemic.},
journal = {Neurology: Neuroimmunology $\&$ Neuroinflammation ;
official journal of the American Academy of Neurology},
volume = {13},
number = {3},
issn = {2332-7812},
address = {Philadelphia, Pa.},
publisher = {Wolters Kluwer},
reportid = {DZNE-2026-00194},
pages = {e200555},
year = {2026},
abstract = {The aim of this study was to analyze changes in hospital
incidence cases and disease severity of
autoantibody-associated autoimmune encephalitis (AE) during
the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the prepandemic period.A
retrospective multicenter study analyzed data from 24
centers within the German Network for Research on Autoimmune
Encephalitis (GENERATE). Patients with a new diagnosis of
definite antibody-positive autoimmune encephalitis from 2017
to 2022 were included and divided into prepandemic
(2017-2019) and pandemic (2020-2022) periods.Among 392
patients, 227 were diagnosed before and 165 during the
pandemic (mean 9.5 vs 6.9 per site, p = 0.04). A reduction
was observed in cases with antibodies to neuronal surface
antigens (174 vs 122 cases; mean 7.3 vs 5.1 per site, p =
0.02), while cases with antibodies against intracellular
antigens remained stable (p = 0.40). No differences were
observed in disease severity, age, or sex distribution
between periods.This study provides clinical data on
antibody-positive AE before and during the COVID-19
pandemic. The findings do not support the hypothesis that
SARS-CoV-2 infection triggers autoantibody-associated AE or
increases disease severity.},
keywords = {Humans / COVID-19: epidemiology / Male / Female / Middle
Aged / Retrospective Studies / Incidence / Encephalitis:
epidemiology / Encephalitis: immunology / Aged / Adult /
Germany: epidemiology / Hashimoto Disease: epidemiology /
Hashimoto Disease: immunology / Autoantibodies: blood /
Severity of Illness Index / Young Adult / Aged, 80 and over
/ Hospitalization: statistics $\&$ numerical data /
Autoantibodies (NLM Chemicals)},
cin = {AG Prüß},
ddc = {610},
cid = {I:(DE-2719)1810003},
pnm = {353 - Clinical and Health Care Research (POF4-353)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-353},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16},
pubmed = {pmid:41687038},
doi = {10.1212/NXI.0000000000200555},
url = {https://pub.dzne.de/record/285252},
}