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An association between Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease and Guillain-Barré syndrome
J Najman-Vainer1, R D Levinson, M C Graves
1Ocular Inflammatory Disease Center, Jules Stein Eye Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California 90095-7002, USA.
Purpose:
To describe an association between Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease and Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Methods:
Case series, describing three patients.
Results:
In two patients, the disorders had their onsets within 2 weeks of each other; in the third patient, Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease occurred after 3 months, as Guillain-Barré syndrome resolved. All three patients had bilateral panuveitis typical of Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease. Each also developed well-accepted manifestations of Guillain-Barré syndrome, including paresis of the lower extremities (all patients), paresis of the upper extremities (two patients), paresis of cranial nerves (two patients), areflexia (all patients), and abnormal electromyography findings (two patients).
Conclusions:
Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease may follow or occur simultaneously with Guillain-Barré syndrome. The fact that these two autoimmune disorders occur together in some patients suggest that they may share common disease mechanisms.