paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration, the most common paraneoplastic syndrome affecting the brain, occurring most commonly with ovarian and breast carcinoma and Hodgkin’s disease, characterized pathologically by severe loss of Purkinje’s cells and clinically by insidious and progressive truncal and appendicular ataxia, dysarthria, nystagmus, and, occasionally, dementia. In some women with gynecological or breast carcinoma, it is associated with an autoantibody (anti-Yo).
