Different from Nourth China, AIDP was the dominant subtype of GBS in South China
Recently, the researches from Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University conducted a multi-center retrospective clinical trial and investigated the subtypes of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) in southern china, compare the clinical features of demyelinating form with that of axonal form and test whether preceding infections and age have influence on the clinical phenotype, disease course and severity of GBS.
The study revealed that predominant subtype of GBS in southern China was Acute inflammatory demyelinating poly neuropathy (AIDP, accounts for 49.0%), with acute motor axonal neuropathy (AMAN) constituting a smaller proportion of subjects (18.8%), whereas, according to the well-known studies in northern China in the 1990s, axonal form made up approximately 65–70% of patients. This result challenged the traditional knowledge that AMAN is the main type of GBS in China and will exert significant influence on the treatment of GBS.
The excellent paper which named Guillain-Barré syndrome in southern China: retrospective analysis of hospitalized patients from 14 provinces in the area south of the Huaihe River was published on an authoritative magazine of neurology Journal of neurology neurosurgery and psychiatry, and was highly valued by other peers. Prof. Zu-neng Lu, coming from the department of neurology of Renmin hospital of Wuhan University is the correspondence author and Dr. Shu-ping Liu together with Prof. Zhe-man Xiao are the first authors of the paper.
GBS is the leading cause of acute flaccid paralysis, with about 100 000 people developing this disorder every year worldwide Prof. Lu said. It has a relatively higher rate of disability and mortality in low/middle-income countries and bring heavy economic burden to the state and society. AIDP and AMAN are the two main phenotypes of GBS with different pathogenesis, pathological characteristics and may be different prognosis. As the primary subtype of GBS in northern China, AMAN has received worldwide attention. Reports suggested that AMAN accounted for approximately 65% of patients with GBS in northern China and predicted a more serious condition, whereas AMAN constituted only 1–3% of GBS in Europe and North America. Since the clinical and electrophysiological patterns of GBS in southern China have yet to be fully recognized, neurologists always use data from northern China to estimate the profiles of Chinese patients. However, these kinds of generalizations may ignore regional differences, particularly the genetic and environmental differences between South China and North China, and thus lead to somewhat incorrect assessments. Under this circumstance, we performed this study in order to increase our understanding of the clinical features and electrophysiological profiles of GBS in southern China, aid in patient counseling and in the design of clinical trials.
(Transferred by Niu Xuan)
