Increased Guillain-Barre syndrome admissions in Shiraz, southern Iran

BACKGROUND: Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) is an acute immune-mediated peripheral neuropathy usually after an incident. This study was performed to investigate the basic epidemiologic features of GBS in south of Iran. METHODS: We studied consecutive patients with GBS in Nemazi Hospital of Shiraz, southern Iran. Demographic characteristics of the subjects, i.e. age, sex, and length of hospital stay were extracted. Information regarding yearly admissions for the entire hospital was also gathered. The prevalence of GBS per 10,000 hospital admissions was calculated and stratified by sex and year. Yearly prevalence was compared using the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). RESULTS: From January 2000 to December 2009, 389 (232 males and 157 females) patients with GBS were admitted in our center. The mean age of patients was 29.8 ± 23.0 years and their mean length of hospital stay was 12.9 ± 11.6 days. The overall mortality rate was 6%. The ratio of admissions due to GBS to the total admissions was significantly higher in 2009, the year of an influenza A (H1N1) virus pandemic. CONCLUSION: There appears to be an increase in the incidence of GBS in Shiraz. This is in parallel with the increasing trend of some other autoimmune diseases.