Vaccine Associated Paralytic Poliomyelitis, Mimicking Guillain-Barre Syndrome

J Korean Assoc EMG Electrodiagn Med 2005;7(1):45-49.
Published online May 10, 2005.

Abstract

In most areas of the world, wild polio virus is eradicated thanks to the mass campaign for polio vaccination. Though wild polio viruses are eradicated, poliomyelitis still shows near-negligible incidences in relation to oral polio virus vaccination (OPV). When a patient shows acute, generalized, asymmetrical weakness, a physician would try to rule out other neurological diseases rather than poliomyelitis. Especially, in case a patient has no vaccination history, no contract history with a recipient, a physician seldom consider poliomyelitis as a primary cause of weakness. We experienced a case of 8-year-old boy who did not receive OPV in recent years and did not have known contract history with recipient. He showed a feature of acute motor axonal polyneuropathy in electrophysiologic study and later was diagnosed by stool exam as naving vaccine-associated poliomyelitis (sabin 1, 3 type).

Key Words: Vaccine associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP), Acute motor axonal polyneuropathy (Guillain-Barre Syndrome), OPV, Poliomyelitis, Asymmetrical weakness