Cabezudo-García, PabloMena-Vázquez, NataliaCiano-Petersen, Nicolás LGarcía-Martín, GuillerminaEstivill-Torrús, GuillermoSerrano-Castro, Pedro J2025-01-072025-01-072021-03-192076-3425https://hdl.handle.net/10668/26056The prevalence of neural autoantibodies in epilepsy of unknown etiology varies among studies. We aimed to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the pooled global prevalence and the prevalence for each antibody. A systematic search was conducted for studies that included prospectively patients ≥16 years old with epilepsy of unknown etiology and systematically determined neural autoantibodies. A meta-analysis was undertaken to estimate pooled prevalence in total patients with a positive result for at least one neural autoantibody in serum and/or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and for each autoantibody. Ten of the eleven studies that met the inclusion criteria and a total of 1302 patients with epilepsy of unknown etiology were included in themeta-analysis. The global pooled prevalence (IC95%) was 7.6% (4.6-11.2) in a total of 82 patients with a positive result for any neural autoantibody. None of the controls available in the studies had a positive result. Individual pooled prevalence for each autoantibody was: glycine receptor (GlyR) (3.2%), glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) (1.9%), N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) (1.8%), leucine-rich glioma inactivated-1 protein (LGI1) (1.1%), contactin-2-associated protein (CASPR2) (0.6%) and onconeuronal (0.2%). The pooled prevalence of neural autoantibodies in patients with epilepsy of unknown etiology is small but not irrelevant. None of the controls had a positive result. There was high heterogeneity among studies. In the future, a homogeneous protocol for testing neural autoantibodies is recommended.enAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/antibodiesautoantibodiesautoimmune epilepsyepilepsyneural autoantibodiesprevalenceresearch article33808902open access10.3390/brainsci11030392PMC8003737https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/3/392/pdf?version=1616383955https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8003737/pdf