Guillain-Barre Syndrome in Orthotopic Liver Transplant Recipient

Guillain-Barre syndrome is an acute immune-mediated demyelinating, polyneuropathy, which is usually provoked by a preceding infection. Guillain-Barre syndrome lies within the spectrum of disimmune neuropathies and usually occurs in immunocompromised patients because it is theoretically contradictory. Guillain-Barre syndrome in liver transplant recipients has been rarely reported. Here, we present a case of a patient who had undergone a deceased donor liver transplant and who developed symptoms of Guillain-Barre syndrome in the posttransplant period. We postulated that reactivation of varicella-zoster virus in our patient triggered the autoimmune-related peripheral neuropathy leading to Guillain-Barre syndrome; another etiology for this complication may be autoimmune hepatitis, as also shown in our patient.