Journey of Guillain Barre syndrome from the pre-pandemic era to the pandemic era: A 4-year retrospective study.

Abstract

To study demographic and clinical profiles of Guillain Barre syndrome (GBS) in the pre-pandemic and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic era and to compare the GBS incidence, severity, and its outcome in the pre-pandemic and pandemic eras. This is a 4-year retrospective study done in a tertiary care hospital in Delhi, India, between March 2018 and March 2022. Patients were divided into the pre-pandemic era and pandemic era (2 years before and 2 years after March 2020). The number of patients (N) was 25 in the pandemic/vaccine era, while N = 49 in the pre-pandemic era. The mean duration of hospitalization was significantly higher (<i>P</i> = 0.03) during the pandemic era (10.68 ± 6.67 days) compared to the pre-pandemic era (7.59 ± 3.55 days). There was no statistical difference in age (<i>P</i> = 0.56), gender (<i>P</i> = 0.70), GBS variants (<i>P</i> = 0.40), clinical spectrum, antecedent infection (<i>P</i> = 0.91), Hughes Disability Score on admission and discharge (<i>P</i> = 0.93 and <i>P</i> = 0.52, respectively), respiratory involvement requiring a ventilator (<i>P</i> = 0.19), and mortality (<i>P</i> = 0.26) in both the eras. Our study showed no association of the incidence of GBS with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The mean hospitalization days were significantly increased during COVID-19 in view of associated respiratory involvement. The commonly held hypothesis of the increase in GBS cases during the pandemic/vaccine era has not been observed in our study.