Nerve conduction studies in relation to residual fatigue in Guillain-Barré syndrome

Many Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP) patients recover well, but suffer from excessive fatigue, which may persist for years and reduce the quality of life considerably. In order to determine whether residual subclinical peripheral nerve dysfunction is a possible underlying mechanism of fatigue, we performed standardized nerve conduction (NC) studies in 16 fatigued patients, mean 6.5 years after diagnosis. Thirteen were relatively well recovered from GBS and 3 had stable CIDP. In contrast to CIDP, most NC values in GBS patients were remarkably restored and within normal values. No correlations were found between the electrophysiological findings and the fatigue scores,muscle strength, or functional scores. This study demonstrates that fatigue in GBS is not explained by residual nerve dysfunction, using conventional NC measurements.