Treatment of Guillain‐Barré syndrome with high‐dose immune globulins combined with methylprednisolone: A pilot study

Abstract

In an open study 25 patients with Guillain‐Barré syndrome were treated for 5 days with intravenous immune globulins in a dose of 0.4 gm/kg of body weight/day and 0.5 gm of methylprednisolone intravenously per day. The results of this combined treatment were compared with the results from a group of 74 patients who were treated with immune globulins only in a recent Dutch Guillain‐Barré trial. In the methylprednisolone–immune globulin treatment group, 19 of 25 patients (76%) improved by one or more functional grades after 4 weeks, as compared with 39 (53%) of 74 patients treated with immune globulin alone (p = 0.04). Also the median time required to the stage of walking independently was reduced in the methylprednisolone–immune globulin treatment group. This pilot study suggests that combined treatment with methylprednisolone and immune globulins in patients with the Guillain‐Barré syndrome is more effective than treatment with immune globulins alone; a randomized clinical trial might confirm this.