Covid-19 associated Guillain-Barre Syndrome: Contrasting tale of four patients from a tertiary care centre in India

Nanda, Satyan; Handa, Rahul; Prasad, Atul; Anand, Rajiv; Zutshi, Dhruv; Dass, Sujata K.; Bedi, Prabhjeet Kaur; Pahuja, Aarti; Shah, Pankaj Kumar; Sharma, Bipan

BACKGROUND: Globally, more than 12 million people have been infected with COVID −19 infection till date with more than 500,000 fatalities. Although, Covid-19 commonly presents with marked respiratory symptoms in the form of cough and dyspnoea, a neurotropic presentation has been described of late as well. OBJECTIVE: In this brief communication we report four cases of Covid-19 who presented to our hospital with features suggestive of Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). DISCUSSION: The mechanisms by which SARS-CoV-2 causes neurologic damage are multifaceted, including direct damage to specific receptors, cytokine-related injury, secondary hypoxia, and retrograde travel along nerve fibres. The pathogenesis of GBS secondary to Covid-19 is not well understood. It is hypothesised that viral illnesses related GBS could be due to autoantibodies or direct neurotoxic effects of viruses. CONCLUSION: Nervous system involvement in Covid-19 may have been grossly underestimated. In this era of pandemic, it is very important for the physicians to be aware of association of GBS with Covid-19, as early diagnosis and treatment of this complication could have gratifying results. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such case series of Guillain-Barre Syndrome associated with Covid-19 to be reported from India.