Recent Concepts of Guillain-Barré Syndrome

ABSTRACT

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is a representative form of post-infectious autoimmune neuropathy with heterogenous manifestations. It was originally considered as an ascending demyelinating polyneuropathy in Western countries. However, the discovery of anti-ganglioside antibodies on the basis of molecular mimicry theory could help us better understand various kinds of focal and regional variants as well as axonal type of GBS those were frequently found from Asian countries. Recent development of new techniques about anti-ganglioside complex antibodies is making more detailed descriptions for specific or unusual clinical manifestations. It has been regarded that GBS has good prognosis if treated properly as early as possible, but it still shows high mortality and morbidity rate with frequent long term neurologic and medical complications. Unfortunately, there are only two options for medical treatment, intravenous immunoglobulin and plasmapheresis, for the last 100 years. Several clinical studies on new immunotherapy targeting complement activating system with background of molecular mimicry using animal model are underway. We hope that these new treatments will be helpful for the future patients.