Epidemiology Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Epidemiology, including details on twin studies, statistics, environmental and genetic factors.

Epidemiology of childhood Guillan-Barre syndrome in the north west of Iran.

Barzegar M, Dastgiri S, Karegarmaher MH, Varshochiani A

Department of Pediatrics, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran. mm_barzegar@yahoo.com <mm_barzegar@yahoo.com>

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: This study was carried out to investigate the incidence, annual time trend and some epidemiological and clinical features of Guillain-Barre syndrome in children in the north west of Iran. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this population-based cross sectional research, epidemiological and clinical features of 143 cases with Guillain-Barre syndrome between 2001 and 2006 were studied. The setting of the study was Tabriz Children Medical Centre, the major University-Hospital located in Tabriz city of the East Azarbaijan province covering whole region. Data collected included age, gender, chronological information, preceding events, functional grade of motor deficit. RESULTS: The mean age (standard deviation) of subjects was 5.4 (3.6) years. The male/female ratio was 1.3. The average annual incidence rate was 2.27 per 100 000 population of 15 years children (CI95%: 1.9-2.6). The majority of cases occurred in March, July and November and the highest proportion of the syndrome was observed in winter (29 percent, P > 0.10). CONCLUSION: The results indicated that an unexpected high incidence of Guillain-Barre syndrome has occurred in 2003 in the region. We concluded that a monitoring and surveillance system for Guillain-Barre syndrome is essential to set up in this region.

Published 3 September 2007 in BMC Neurol, 7: 22.
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