A Case with Bibrachial Variant of Guillain-Barré Syndrome

Case Report

J Korean Assoc EMG Electrodiagn Med 2014;16(2):99-102.
Published online December 31, 2014.

Received: 13 October 2014 • Revised: 26 November 2014 • Accepted: 2 December 2014

Abstract

The bibrachial variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is characterized by rapidly progressive and predominant weakness of both upper extremities with hyporeflexia or areflexia. Because the bibracial variant is rare, the pathomechanism and disease course has not been clarified. We report a 42-year-old man with rapidly progressive weakness of both arms. His electrophysiological study showed partial conduction blocks of motor nerves normalized without development of excessive temporal dispersion within 3 weeks. This case suggests that the main pathophysiological mechanism is reversible conduction block and it may be in the continuous spectrum of axonal motor GBS subtype.

Key Words: Guillain-Barré syndrome, pharyngeal-cervical-brachial variant, acute motor axonal neuropathy