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Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry logoLink to Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry
. 1994 Jul;57(7):778–783. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.57.7.778

Pure motor demyelinating neuropathy: deterioration after steroid treatment and improvement with intravenous immunoglobulin.

M Donaghy 1, K R Mills 1, S J Boniface 1, J Simmons 1, I Wright 1, N Gregson 1, J Jacobs 1
PMCID: PMC1073014  PMID: 8021660

Abstract

Within one month of starting oral prednisolone treatment weakness unexpectedly increased in four patients aged 34 to 75 years with purely motor forms of acquired chronic demyelinating neuropathy. By contrast, steroids produced the expected improvement in 11 other patients with symmetric sensorimotor chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy. Two of the patients with purely motor demyelinating neuropathy were subsequently treated with high dose IVIg (0.4 g/kg/day for five days) with prompt improvements in strength measurements and motor nerve conduction. Thus IVIg seems to be the treatment of choice and steroids should be used with extreme caution, if at all, in patients with purely motor forms of acquired demyelinating polyneuropathy.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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