Abstract
A 52-year-old woman with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) experienced rapad gait deterioration complicated by severe chronic renal insufficiency. Hemodialysis was thus instituted. No immediate improvement was observed, but symptoms were subsequently ameliorated by steroid pulse therapy. The prodromal symptom was a common cold. The latent period was about 19 days, and the duration of acute illness was 6 days. Severity at the height of the symptomatic period was grade 4 according to the scoring system established by Hughes et al. The morbid period was about 300 days.
GBS is a demyelinating polyneuritis the main symptom of which is acute motor paralysis. When the disease is associated with renal insufficiency, it is difficult to differentiate from accelerated uremic neuropathy (AUN), because both conditions show cell dissociation of cerebrospinal fluid proteins, demyelination and peripheral neuropathy in which muscle weakness predominates during the rapidly progressive phase. Thus, the clinical course of GBS resembles that of AUN.
