Guillain Barre syndrome in an HIV-1-infected patient after the beginning of combined antiretroviral therapy: an immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome?

HIV-1-associated Guillan-Barre syndrome (hGBS) is an ascendant progressive polyradiculoneuropathy described throughout the course of the viral disease, mainly associated with the acute retroviral syndrome. HGBS is occasionally described in severely immunocompromised subjects in the context of the immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome. The case described occurred soon after the start of a combined antiretroviral treatment in an HIV-1 infected patient with ulcerative colitis in the absence of severe immunosuppression. This manifestation may be interpreted as an uncommon appearance of an immune reconstitution syndrome in the presence of a predisposing autoimmune pathology.