Guillain-Barré syndrome in a patient with pancreatic cancer after an epidural-general anesthetic.

Guillain-Barre syndrome is a rare occurrence in medicine and is probably rarer still as a postoperative complication. We report an uneventful operative course, during epidural-general anesthesia, in a patient undergoing pancreatectomy who presented with acute paralysis mimicking an acute cervical spinal cord syndrome or brachial plexus neuropathy. The signs and symptoms of right upper extremity paralysis occurred within 2 h postoperatively. Immediate work-up, which included magnetic resonance imaging, electromyography, and nerve conduction velocity studies, provided the diagnosis.