Abstract

GUILLAIN-BARRÉ SYNDROME (GBS) – AN ORPHAN DISEASE

Ambed Mishra*, Sai Krishna G. and Komal Krishna T.

Abstract

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is an unusual illness of the nervous system in which a person’s own immune system damages the nerve cells, causing muscle weakness, and sometimes, paralysis. This condition has an expected incidence of 1-2 cases per 100,000 individuals. The mortality rate due to misdiagnosis is very high. Though the expected number of cases to that are reported vary from underdeveloped and developing countries, and are very less. The actual reported cases of occurrence of GBS is nearly negligible from these countries. This may be attributed to the disease misdiagnosis. Misdiagnosis occurs due to lack of knowledge of GBS in many practitioners, where they misdiagnose GBS to be a case of paralysis. This becomes a serious issue as GBS may cause death when untreated within few hours to days. This review highlights the major symptoms including causes of misdiagnosis due to similar presenting signs and symptoms to other diseases and treatment of this rarely reported disease. This review aims to pass a safety message to all the healthcare practitioners regarding GBS and to aid them in recognizing the disease better. Hence, decreasing the misdiagnosis and mortality.

Keywords: Guillain-Barré syndrome, GBS, increased mortality, Nervous system.