The characteristics of Guillain-Barre syndrome in children in pre-COVID-19 and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: In the pathophysiology of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), inflammation and immunity are believed to play a key role. The neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), monocyte-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) have been recently identified as potential markers of inflammation or immunity. This study aimed to investigate whether NLR, MLR, and PLR are associated with GBS characteristics in children. We also assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the characteristics of GBS in Iran.

METHODS: In this retrospective cross-sectional study, we reviewed the records of all 150 children diagnosed with GBS in the Children's Medical Center hospital affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) from March 2017 until March 2022. The TUMS research ethics committee approved the study (Ethics code: IR.TUMS.CHMC.REC.1399.125). Patients' data including gender, age, clinical symptoms, laboratory findings, and electrodiagnostic study results were collected and analyzed.

RESULTS: This study involved 150 children, comprising 93 boys and 57 girls, with an average age of 7.53 ± 3.75 years. The analysis demonstrated that the number of hospitalization days increased with an increase in NLR ( p  = 0.025). Moreover, patients with abnormal electrodiagnostic study patterns had a higher risk of intensive care unit (ICU) admission ( p : 0.027), although according to binary logistic regression, respiratory failure at admission time was the only significant factor increasing the risk of ICU admission ( p  = 0.035). The study also found that the pandemic has resulted in a shift from acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy to acute motor axonal neuropathy as the most common EMG-NCV pattern in our patients ( p  < 0.001).

CONCLUSION: We found that higher NLR was associated with a longer hospitalization duration and could potentially distinguish between severe and mild cases of GBS. We have also shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our patients' most frequent electromyography and nerve conduction velocity (EMG-NCV) patterns.