[Neurological complications after influenza vaccination (author's transl)].

The clinical aspects and differential diagnosis of 11 neural complications following influenza vaccination (Guillain-Barré syndrome, serogenetic polyneuritis, encephalomyelitis) are discussed. Etiopathogenetically a hypersensitivity to components in the serum must be taken into consideration, as a case with anaphylactoid reaction shows. The incubation period of the remaining cases (beginning only after the 4th day post vaccination) is on the other hand consistent with the assumption of a pathomechanism rather like that of serum sickness. The number of influenza vaccinations previously administered in the individual case bears no relation to the neurological disturbances described. Vaccines of different manufacture can, in the same way, provoke these rare inoculation complications (frequency: 1 case per 0.7-1.3 mio vaccinations). The indication for influenza vaccinations is not limited by these occurrences.