Guillain-Barré, and COVID-19 vaccination: a systematic review

Abstract

This systematic review of studies about GBS following COVID-19 vaccination was conducted to clarify if any connections were found, and which vaccines could cause this syndrome. Methods: A comprehensive search was performed on July 2021 through MEDLINE (via PubMed), Scopus, Cochrane, and Web of Science databases to detect published and unpublished papers. Our PICO was all COVID-19 vaccinated individuals as a population, COVID-19 vaccines, as the intervention, and patients who experienced Guillain-Barré syndrome following COVID-19 vaccination were considered as a study outcome. Only case reports and case series were included in this article and critical appraisal instruments from the Joanna Briggs Institute were implemented to evaluate the included studies' quality. Results: In the present systematic review,12 case reports and case series including 21 patients were assessed. More than half of the patients were male, and the mean age of male patients was lower than females. In terms of vaccine type, the most common kind of vaccine injected was Oxford / AstraZeneca, and all of the cases except one patient had received only one dose of the vaccine. Regarding the interval between receiving the vaccine and the onset of GBS symptoms, the mean duration was 14 days. The lowest mean time interval between receiving the vaccine and the onset of symptoms of Guillain-Barre syndrome was related to the unnamed vector-based COVID-19 vaccine, and the highest was associated with Oxford / AstraZeneca.