Many autoimmune neuromuscular disorders are reversible with prompt diagnosis and early treatment. Understanding the potential utility and limitations of antibody testing in each clinical setting is critical for practicing neurologists.

In this episode, Teshamae Monteith, MD, FAAN speaks with Divyanshu Dubey, MD, FAAN, author of the article “Autoimmune Neuromuscular Disorders Associated With Neural Antibodies,” in the Continuum® August 2024 Autoimmune Neurology issue.

Dr. Monteith is the associate editor of Continuum® Audio and an associate professor of clinical neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, Florida.

Dr. Dubey is an associate professor in the departments of neurology and laboratory medicine and pathology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Additional Resources

Read the article: Autoimmune Neuromuscular Disorders Associated With Neural Antibodies

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Earn CME (available only to AAN members): continpub.com/AudioCME

Continuum® Aloud (verbatim audio-book style recordings of articles available only to Continuum® subscribers): continpub.com/Aloud

More about the American Academy of Neurology: aan.com

Social Media

facebook.com/continuumcme

@ContinuumAAN

Host: @headacheMD

Guest: @Div_Dubey

Transcript

Full episode transcript available here

Dr Jones: This is Dr Lyell Jones, Editor-in-Chief of Continuum, the premier topic-based neurology clinical review and CME journal from the American Academy of Neurology. Thank you for joining us on Continuum Audio, which features conversations with Continuum’s guest editors and authors who are the leading experts in their fields. Subscribers to the Continuum journal can read the full article or listen to verbatim recordings of the article and have access to exclusive interviews not featured on the podcast. Please visit the link in the episode notes for more information on the article, subscribing to the journal, and how to get CME.

 

Dr Monteith: This is Dr Teshamae Monteith, Associate Editor of Continuum Audio. Today, I'm interviewing Dr Divyanshu Dubey about his article on autoimmune neuromuscular disorders associated with neural autoantibodies, which is part of the August 2024 Continuum issue on autoimmune neurology. Welcome to the podcast. How are you?

 

Dr Dubey: Hi, Dr Monteith. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of this podcast. I'm doing well.

 

Dr Monteith: Well, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience? And, call me Tesha.

 

Dr Dubey: I'm Divyanshu Dubey (please, call me Div). I'm one of the autoimmune neurology consultants here at Mayo Clinic Rochester. I'm an Associate Professor of neurology, as well as lab medicine and pathology. My responsibilities here are split - partly seeing patients (primarily patients with autoimmune disorders, including neuromuscular disorders), and then 50% of my time (or, actually, more than 50%), I spend in the lab, either doing research on these autoimmune disorders or reporting antibodies in a clinical setting for various antibody panels which Mayo’s neuroimmunology lab offers.

 

Dr Monteith: That's a nice overlap of subspecialty area. How did you get into this work?

 

Dr Dubey: I think a lot of it was, sort of, by chance. Meeting the right people at the right time was the main, sort of, motivation for me. Initially, I trained in India for my medical school and didn't really got much exposed to autoimmune neurology in India. I think our primary concern in my training was sort of treating TB meningitis and cerebral malaria - that was my exposure to neurology, including stroke and some epilepsy cases. As a part of application for USMLEs and coming here to residency, I did some externships, and one of the externships was at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and that's when I worked a few weeks with Dr Posner and got introduced to the idea of paraneoplastic neurological syndrome working with him. And that sort of started - I wouldn't call it vicious cycle - but my interest in the area of autoimmune neurology and paraneoplastic neurological disorders, which subsequently was refined further through residency and fellowships.

 

Dr Monteith: That's int