Incidence of Guillain-Barré Syndrome post COVID-19: a systematic review of case reports and case series

H. Mahmoud, A. Alhathla, A. El-Fiky, M.S. Alghamdi, R. Alwafi, M.S. El-Sayed, A.A. Thabet, A.M. Alkhateeb, S.R. Elgendy, R. Hegazy, A. Darweesh

Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia. melsayed@horus.edu.eg

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• Immunology
• Infectious Diseases

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this systematic review was to study the incidence, risk factors and patients subjected to Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) after COVID-19.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: For qualitative assessment and assessing the methodological quality, the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA 2020) checklist were utilized. Data from PubMed, Cochrane, Embase, CINAHIL, Medline, ResearchGate, and Scopus were searched. The relevant studies involved patients with confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis by RT-PCR, and GBS diagnosis based on typical clinical symptoms and/or confirmatory diagnostic results. A total of 12 English relevant articles (6 papers were case reports and 8 were case series with a total of 32 patients) published in a peer-reviewed journal from 2019 to 2021 were included. Following the review methodology, two independent raters were responsible for retrieving, extracting and checking for data eligibility. Demographic characteristics are presented as frequencies and percentages. Based on distribution of values, continuous data were expressed as median and interquartile range (IQR).

RESULTS: Out of 32 patients, 26 patients reported neurological symptoms, 6 cases went unnoticed, 7 cases showed involvement of the cranial nerves, 12 cases did not, and 13 cases went unreported.

CONCLUSIONS: It is too early to draw any conclusions concerning a potential relationship between SARS-CoV-2 infection and GBS. More large-scale observational studies are required to understand the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2-associated GBS and to demonstrate a definite causal relationship between GBS and SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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