Anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis associated with mediastinal teratoma: a rare case report and literature review

Anti-NMDAR encephalitis is a rare disease characterized by antibodies against the heteromeric NR1–NR2 receptor complex. It has been first described in 2007 by Dalmau (1) and recently been identified to be neuroautoimmune disorder. It mainly occurs in young women with ovarian teratoma, presenting with a series of paraneoplastic syndromes such as psychiatric and neurologic symptoms, autonomic dysfunction (2-5). However, anti-NMDAR encephalitis combined with mediastinal teratoma is extremely rare. To our best knowledge, only three cases of anti-NMDAR encephalitis associated with mediastinal teratoma had been reported (6-8). Here, we demonstrate an 18 years old female patient of anti-NMDAR encephalitis caused by a large mature mediastinal teratoma with a complete recovery after intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) and surgical resection