Evaluation of scales and measurement instruments in immune-mediated polyneuropathies

Immune-mediated neuropathies mainly include Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) (most common form: acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (AJDP)), chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), neuropathy associated with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUSP), and multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN) (1-11). Electrophysiological examination in these patients generally reveals features of a demyelinating polyneuropathy. These neuropathies have become increasingly important in clinical neurology because they are readily diagnosable and potentially treatable. Evidence has emerged from many papers in the last decade to indicate that these illnesses represent part of a continuum separated by their neuromuscular dysfunction pattern, time course and response to various treatments (Figure I; 1-11). However, the distinction between these illnesses is in some aspect somewhat artificial. In the following, selected aspects of these diseases are discussed with particular emphasis on clinical presentation and outcome measures applied in clinical studies published from January 1988 to January 1999 that included patients with one of these disorders.

• View at Worldcat

Free Full Text ( Final Version , 6mb )