[Characteristics of sympathetic skin response in children with Guillain-Barré syndrome].

Objectives: To explore the value of sympathetic skin response (SSR) in the early diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) in children.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical data of 25 children with GBS who were diagnosed from October 2018 to November 2022, and 30 children who were diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome during the same period were selected as the control group. The characteristics of SSR were compared between the two groups, and the association of SSR with autonomic dysfunction (AD), disease severity, and prognosis was analyzed.

Results: The GBS group had a significantly higher abnormal rate of SSR than the control group during the acute phase (<0.001). SSR combined with early nerve conduction (within 2 weeks after onset) had a sensitivity of 84%, a specificity of 100%, and an accuracy of 93% in the diagnosis of GBS. There were no significant differences in the proportion of AD cases, as well as the Hughes scores during the disease peak, between the abnormal and normal SSR groups (>0.05). All 7 children with poor short-term prognosis (at 1 month after onset) had abnormal SSR.

Conclusions: SSR can be used for the early diagnosis of GBS and the monitoring of treatment response in children.