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Guillain‐Barré syndrome in northwest Greece
Author(s) -
Markoula S.,
Giannopoulos S.,
Sarmas I.,
Tzavidi S.,
Kyritsis A. P.,
Lagos G.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
acta neurologica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.967
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1600-0404
pISSN - 0001-6314
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0404.2006.00731.x
Subject(s) - medicine , etiology , guillain barre syndrome , incidence (geometry) , epidemiology , pediatrics , mortality rate , neurology , surgery , physics , optics , psychiatry
Objective – We present the epidemiological and clinical‐laboratory features of Guillain‐Barré syndrome (GBS) in northwest Greece over a 9.5‐year period. Materials and methods – We studied all the patients with GBS who were admitted to our neurology inpatient service from January 1996 to May 2005 and compared them with previously published series. Results – Forty‐six patients were hospitalized during this period. The average crude incidence rate was 1.22/100,000 populations per year, and males were more susceptible than females. There was a spring clustering, as 52.17% presented the syndrome during spring. The axonal type of GBS was recorded in 13.04% of the patients. The most frequent presenting symptom was dysesthetic numbness (52.17%). A large number of patients (56.52%) had up to three times the elevation of liver function values that resolved in a few weeks. Most patients had an excellent recovery and no deaths were recorded. Conclusions – In our series, there was no difference in the incidence rate and subtypes of GBS but there was a significant seasonality with spring clustering. A transient elevation of transaminases of undetermined etiology was noted in more than a half of our patients. Although seven patients (15.21%) had significant neurologic sequelae, no deaths occurred.