Over the past 20 years, more than 50 antibodies have been identified and associated with autoimmune neurologic disorders. Although advances in diagnostic testing have allowed for more rapid diagnosis, the therapeutic approach to these disorders has largely continued to rely on expert opinion, case series, and case reports.

In this episode, Allison Weathers, MD, FAAN, speaks with Tammy L. Smith, MD, PhD, an author of the article “Therapeutic Approach to Autoimmune Neurologic Disorders,” in the Continuum® August 2024 Autoimmune Neurology issue.

Dr. Weathers is a Continuum® Audio interviewer and associate chief medical information officer at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dr. Smith is a GRECC investigator and staff neurologist at George E. Wahlen Veteran Affairs Medical Center and an assistant professor of neurology, at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Additional Resources

Read the article: Therapeutic Approach to Autoimmune Neurologic Disorders

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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

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 Weathers: This is Dr Allison Weathers. Today, I'm interviewing Dr Tammy Smith about her article on therapeutic approach to autoimmune neurologic disorders, which she wrote with Dr Stacey Clardy. This article is a part of the August 2024 Continuum issue on autoimmune neurology. Although, one of the things I love most about being an interviewer for Continuum is getting the opportunity to meet new neurologists and learn all about their areas of expertise, there's something really special when I get the chance to interview and catch up with old colleagues - and today, I'm fortunate to do just that. I had the privilege of working with Dr Smith when she was a resident at Rush, and I'm so excited to be able to speak to her today about her fantastic and really comprehensive article on this very timely topic. Welcome to the podcast, Dr Smith, and please introduce yourself to our audience.

 

Dr Smith: Hi. Yeah, thank you for inviting me to participate in the podcast and to write this article. So, I'm Tammy Smith. I am a neurologist who practices in Salt Lake City. I primarily work at the Salt Lake City VA Medical Center where I get to treat veterans with all sorts of neurologic diseases. I'm also an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Utah in the division of Neuroimmunology and Autoimmune Neurology, and I serve as a Clinical Consultant for ARUP Laboratories to help improve diagnostic testing for immune-mediated neurologic diseases.

 

Dr Weathers: Wow. That is a lot of different roles and things that you have on your plate. I want to start, actually, by talking about the article. Again, you cover so much ground (you and Dr Clardy) in this really comprehensive article, but if you had to choose the one most important message - if you wanted our listeners to walk away remembering one key point, what would it be?

 

Dr Smith: I think the key point I want our listeners to think about is just to use the resources that are available to you. Nobody can have all of these drugs (as we're talking about treatment of autoimmune neurologic diseases in this article) - no one can have all of those drugs memorized, all of the mechanisms of action, all of the approved treatments and off-label treatments, and all of the symptomatic therapies. But that's why resources like the Continuum exist - so that we can provide those resources to clinicians who are busy at that touch of, er, hopefully - or when they open their issue - to get the information they need to make decisions to take good care of their patients.

 

Dr Weathers: I think that is so reassuring. As I was reading this article, that was, like, one of the things that really struck me is that, you know, thinking about even being a resident and studying for something like the rate exam, you know, how much easier it used to be when there was such a limited number of drugs thinking about the autoimmune diseases or epilepsy, where just the number of drugs has just, kind of, multiplied so manyfold since I was in training, that it's really overwhelming. And I think you make a great (and as I said, a very reassuring) point that we don't have to memorize these, that there are these in