Newest human herpesvirus (HHV-6) in the Guillain-Barré syndrome and other neurological diseases

Abstract

To investigate the presence of human herpesvirus-6 (HHV-6) in patients affected by Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and by other neurological diseases (OND), we examined by indirect immunofluorescence analysis (IFA) the sera and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from 28 GBS and 63 OND. Moreover, we tested 150 blood donors (BD) to appreciate the diffusion of HHV-6 infection in the Italian adult healthy population. We found a significantly higher titre of antibody to HHV-6 in the GBS patients compared with OND and BD, although the pathogenicity of the virus is not known.