ABSTRACT
Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) is considered to be the chronic variety of the Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS)-an acute, generally severe, immune-mediated polyneuropathy (1).
CIDP and GBS differ mainly in onset, course, and prognosis. GBS patients have progressive weakness of less than 4 weeks (2). In order to make a clear separation between CIDP and GBS, criteria for CIDP require a progressive phase of 2 months at least (3). In fact, these neuropathies are at the poles of a spectrum, ranging from the very acute variety of GBS on one side to a very slowly progressive CIDP on the other side. The group of patients with a progressive phase exceeding 4 weeks but less than 8 weeks is sometimes named "subacute" idiopathic demyelinating polyneuropathy (4). Not only from a scientific point of view, but certainly also from the clinical, it is relevant to make a distinction between GBS and CIDP. GBS has a monophasic course that very infrequently relapses; treatment has to be administered for a short period of time within the first weeks after the onset of progressive weakness. Patients with CIDP, on the other hand, can have a course characterized by relapses and remissions (Fig. 1). Additionally, there is no rapid progression of weakness, and most patients need to be treated for a long period of time.
