The efficacy of plasmapheresis and immuno­globulins in Guillain-Barré syndrome: A retrospective study

• Autor(a) principal: Negrão, Luís
• Data de Publicação: 1999
• Outros Autores: Santos, J. M., Camões, Francisco, Barbosa, José, Cunha, Luís
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://revista.spmi.pt/index.php/rpmi/article/view/2066
• topic: síndrome de Guillain-Barré; plamasferese; imunoglobulina intravenosa; Guillain-Barré syndrome; plasmaphere­sis; intravenous immunoglobulin

Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) is a sub-acute poliradiculoneuropathy, potentially fatal. Plasma­ pheresis (PF) and recently Intravenous Immuno­ globulin (IvIG) are the therapies of choice, resulting in significant clinicai improvement. ln this retrospective study, 46 patients with a diagnosis of GBS were analysed. Three groups of patients were considered. One (18 patients) treated with PF, a second one (13 patients) with IvIG anda third one (15 patients) received only the best medical treatment (MT). According to the funcional score, 38,4% of patients improved one or mores grades with PF, 61,5% with IvIG and 46,6% with MT. Three patients died, one in the PF group and the others two in the MT group and none in the IvIG. A significant percentage of patients treated with IvIG was discharged with minor signs and symptoms (69,2%), versus 22,2% and 33,3% in the PF and MT groups respectively. This study shows a high favourable response to IvIG. The worst results in the PF group might have been due to a more severe disease and a higher incidence of bad prognostic factors, at the beginning of the treatment.