Fig. 2

Age and sex distribution of antibody-positive patients. Males: blue; females: red. The patients with GAD65 antibodies are predominantly female, whereas in the other groups, the relationship is equal, even with NMDAR antibodies (56% female). Only one girl (4% of all patients with NMDAR antibodies) had paraneoplastic disease with an ovarian teratoma. The figures in a recent Chinese pediatric study were: 61% females (N = 54), one case with ovarian teratoma (1.1%) [28]. One pediatric series from the US (N = 32) had different results: The authors found 81% female patients and 25% paraneoplastic cases [25]. One reason seems to be that African-American patients particularly frequently have paraneoplastic anti-NMDAR encephalitis [26]