From PANDAS to PANS: a nosographic entity in evolution throughout a descriptive analysis of a cohort of 103 italian children and adolescents

PANDAS is an acronym for “Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections” proposed by Susan Swedo in 1998, identifying a unique subgroup of patients with unusually abrupt and dramatic obsessive-compulsive disorders. To address the conflicts regarding diagnosis of PANDAS, in 2010 new developing criteria for a syndrome called PANS (“Pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome”) have been proposed to replace it, highlighting the fact that several mechanisms rather than only Streptococcal infections could be considered the potential agent.