Antinuclear antibodies in Frontotemporal Dementia: the tip's of autoimmunity iceberg?

Abstract Recent studies suggest a role of the autoimmune system dysregulation in Frontotemporal dementia (FTD). In the present study, we performed a broad immunological screening in a large sample of sporadic FTD patients. We reported a significant increase of antinuclear autoantibodies (ANA) positivity in 100 FTD patients as compared to 100 healthy controls (HC) (60% vs. 13%, p These data extend and further confirm autoimmune dysregulation in FTD. However, it still remains to be clarified whether these antibodies have a potential pathogenic role or represent simply an epiphenomenon.