CASE REPORT


Reworsening of Recurrent Guillain-Barré Syndrome Triggered by COVID-19 Infection



Gian Luca Vita1, Carmen Terranova2, Maria Sframeli1, Antonio Toscano2, Giuseppe Vita1, 2, *
1 Nemo Sud Clinical Centre for Neuromuscular Disorders, Messina, Italy
2 European Reference Network for Rare Neuromuscular Diseases (ERN EURO-NMD), Unit of Neurology, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Messina, Messina, Italy


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Creative Commons License
© 2021 Vita et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the UOC di Neurologia e Malattie Neuromuscolari, AOU Policlinico “G. Martino,” 98125 Messina, Italy;
Tel: +39 090 2212793; E-mail: vitag@unime.it


Abstract

Introduction:

Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) is an acute, immune-mediated, generalized polyradiculoneuropathy often triggered by a bacterial or viral infection, vaccination, or surgery. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, some patients were reported with GBS associated COVID-19 infection.

Case Presentation:

We report, herein, a patient who had a recurrent GBS after forty years. Intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIg) induced improvement, but her condition worsened suddenly after twenty days, coinciding with a COVID-19 infection. A second IVIg cycle was administered, and she improved again.

Conclusion:

The take-home message is that in the current pandemic, any re-worsening or lack of improvement after appropriate treatment of GBS or possibly other autoimmune neurological diseases must be checked to determine if it is related to COVID-19 infection.

Keywords: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Guillain-Barré syndrome, Recurrence, Intravenous immunoglobulins, Pandemic.