Table 3.
Feature | Indicates |
Fever | Infections, lymphoma |
Seizures | Implies less likely to be CJD, infective and immune encephalitis, neoplasia, many other mimics |
Hyponatraemia | VGKC encephalitis |
Facial movement disorder | NMDA-R encephalitis, CNS Whipple’s disease |
Modest progression | Implies less likely to be CJD, more likely to be a common neurodegenerative disorder |
CSF pleocytosis | Infections, lymphoma, inflammatory, neoplastic |
Contrast-enhancing lesions | Infections, lymphoma, inflammatory, neoplastic |
MRI hyperintensities on T2-weighted imaging outside the striatum, thalamus and cortex | Vascular diseases, lymphoma, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, encephalitis, extrapontine myelinolysis, others |
CJD, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease; CNS, central nervous system; CSF, cerebrospinal fluid; NMDA-R, N-methyl-D-aspartate; VGKC, voltage-gated potassium channel.