Worsening Guillain-Barré syndrome: harbinger of IRIS in HIV?

We report an HIV patient aged 38 years with acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy subtype of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) as the only manifestation of seroconversion and worsening of GBS being the harbinger of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS). To date, only 5 cases of GBS during IRIS are reported. They manifested either during the third week or later after starting highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Our patient witnessed worsening weakness by fifth day after starting HAART, even before the occurrence of Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia, cautioning one of the impending serious complications of IRIS and helped us initiate steroids at an early date. © BMJ Publishing Group Ltd (unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.