Critical illness polyneuropathy and critical illness myopathy are frequent complications of severe illness that involve sensorimotor axons and skeletal muscles, respectively.

Differentiating critical illness polyneuropathy from Guillain-Barré syndrome, especially the axonal variants, may be difficult on purely clinical grounds, as Guillain-Barré syndrome is known for its variable atypical manifestations.

Prof. Hongliang Zhang and team from the First Bethune Hospital, Jilin University in China provide the latest knowledge concerning the pathophysiology of critical illness polyneuropathy/myopathy along with relevant clinical, diagnostic, differentiating, and treatment information for this debilitating neurological disease, and underscores the importance of differentiating critical illness polyneuropathy and myopathy from Guillain-Barré syndrome.

The relevant paper was published in Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 9, No. 1, 2014).