Prevalence and outcomes of Guillain-Barré syndrome among pediatrics in Saudi Arabia: a 10-year retrospective study

Asiri, Safiyyah; Altwaijri, Waleed A; Ba-Armah, Duaa; Al Rumayyan, Ahmed; Alrifai, Muhammad T; Salam, Mahmoud; Almutairi, Adel F

This was a retrospective cross-sectional study, based on a thorough review of medical records, between 2005 and 2015 at the largest tertiary healthcare facility in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Exceeding a bed capacity of 1,200 beds, King Fahad Hospital was the targeted setting, which is part of a multilevel healthcare system of the Saudi Ministry of Eligible cases were pediatric cases (,14 years old) admitted to the setting complaining of acute paralysis and later diagnosed with one form or variant of GBS. 21, 22 Diagnosis of GBS was confirmed by expert neurologists based on physical examination and a series of diagnostic tests, such as nerve conduction examinations, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and cerebrospinal fluid tests. Diagnostic reports were read and validated by two study investigators. Other cases of acute paralysis were excluded (ie, transverse myelitis, myositis, botulism, and myasthenia gravis) ( Figure 1 ). Patient and disease characteristics included gender, age (years), classification of GBS, season of incident, and any antecedent infections prior to disease onset. Results of physical examination and diagnostic tests as well as the type of clinical management performed were collected. Clinical outcomes mainly included the duration of progression to maximum paralysis (cutoff set at 2 weeks), residual paralysis set at 60 days, and prevalence of recurrent vs relapsed GBS.