Antibody responses to GalC in severe and complicated childhood Guillain-Barré syndrome

Dear Editor,
We recently presented a case series of seven children who developed severe and complicated Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) after infection with Mycoplasma pneumoniae (Mp) (Meyer Sauteur et al., 2015). The disease was rapidly progressive and severe: one died, four had clinically defined central nervous system (CNS) involvement, and five required mechanical ventilation. Given the often relatively benign disease course of GBS after this specific type of infection (Meyer Sauteur et al., 2016) the severe and complicated GBS in this series was rather unexpected. As we recently demonstrated that pediatric and adult GBS after Mp infection is associated with antibodies against galactocerebroside (GalC) (Meyer Sauteur et al., 2016) we investigated if anti-GalC antibodies were also present in these children with severe GBS.