[Acute alcoholic polyneuropathies as an unusual clinical and electromyographic entity]

The clinical and EMG aspects of a particular form of polyneuropathy encountered in seven young alcoholics are presented. This form is characterized by an acute, severe and extensive paralysis with motor, sensitive and vegetative deficit. The reasons of the sudden aggravation of a previous chronic PN are thiamine deficiency -- wich realise the BERI-BERI with Wernicke-Korsakoff encephalopathy -- and a probable poisoning due to the multiples toxics included in the alcoholised beverages. The remarkable clinical features of this PN are: the quickness of the onset, the extension and the severity of the paralysis, the young age of the patients and the relative prevalence of the women -- these two points suggesting a possible congenital predisposition -- and the fast improvement under vitamino-therapy and abstinence. Our EMG findings, in accord with some recent electro-physiological studies with histological confrontations, show up the indirect signs of a massive axonal degeneration in contrast to a mild demyelination. The EMG examen was a good contribution to exclude other possibilities like Guillain-Barré syndrome or alcoholic myopathy, and to follow the evolution.