Mechanical ventilation, hospitalization time, deaths and disability according to the variants of Guillain-Barré syndrome: systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Motivation for the study. It is unclear which variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome is mostly associated with adverse outcomes.

Background: Main findings. Variants had longer time in MV (7.42 days longer), and hospitalization (3.11 days longer). By subgroups, we found that children with the axonal variant had a greater use of MV; whereas, the demyelinating variant was more frequent among adults in MV.

Background: Implications. Our results could be used for the implementation of new public health policies, allowing health personnel to have a better knowledge of the prognosis of each variant and the necessary resources to face future outbreaks.

Objectives.: To determine the requirement and time to mechanical ventilation and Intensive Care Unit (ICU), hospitalization and hospitalization time, death and disability of the axonal variants of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) in comparison with the acute demyelinating variant in patients of all the ages.

Materials and methods.: The systematic review that included patients with GBS. The exposure variable was the axonal variants and the comparator was acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (AIDP). The outcomes were the requirement and time on mechanical ventilation (MV), requirement and time in the ICU, hospitalization time, disability and death. The NewCasttle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) was used to assess risk of bias. A meta-analysis was conducted to calculate mean differences and relative risks (RR) with their 95% confidence intervals (CI) using inverse variances and random effects models.

Results.: Of the 3116 articles found, 46 met the selection criteria. The time on MV was 7.42 days (95% CI: 0.36 to 1.48) and the hospitalization time was 3.11 (95% CI: 0.73 to 5.49) days for the axonal variants. The axonal variants had a RR of 0.47 (95% CI: 0.24 to 0.92) for the requirement of MV in adults, but it was 1.68 (95% CI: 1.25 to 2.25) in children. There was a high statistical heterogeneity.

Conclusions.: Axonal variants showed, on average, longer MV and hospitalization time, overall and by subgroups. A high MV requirement was found for axonal variants in children; it was lower for adults.