Response to treatment in patients with lewis–sumner syndrome

✍ Scribed by Shahram Attarian; Annie Verschueren; Jérome Franques; Emmanuelle Salort-Campana; Elisabeth Jouve; Jean Pouget

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 99 KB
• Volume: 44
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0148-639X
• DOI: 10.1002/mus.22024

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Introduction:

Our aim was to document the classification of Lewis–Sumner syndrome (L‐SS) based on the response to treatment and the pattern of progression over time.

Methods:

We retrospectively identified 15 patients with L‐SS treated for at least 12 months.

Results:

After 1 year, intravenous immunoglobulin was effective in 7 patients, 6 were stable, and 2 worsened. After 5 years, 5 patients had improved, and 3 were stable. These 8 patients needed repeated treatment, and 2 patients gradually worsened. Two patients worsened dramatically after steroid treatment. In 3 patients the neuropathy progressed to the other limbs and developed into an asymmetric polyneuropathy. In 12 other patients the pattern remained multifocal and asymmetric.

Conclusions:

The possibility of decline resulting from corticosteroids, and the fact that no neurological progression toward a diffuse pattern was observed in the majority of patients suggests that L‐SS is a different entity from chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy. Muscle Nerve, 2011