We present a 13 year old girl with Guillian-Barre syndrome in whom we did manual small volume plasma exchange. She presented on day 3 of the onset of illness weakness of all four limbs, bilateral facial palsy and respiratory paralysis needing ventilatory support. Plasmapheresis has been shown to reduce the time to recovery and duration of ventilation with IVIG showing equivalent results. We did small volume manual removal of plasma and removed a total of 50 ml/kg of plasma in 7 sittings. The volume of plasma removed was replaced with normal saline. The procedure was tolerated well. Small volume plasma exchange is a safe and cost-effective treatment option in the treatment of GBS in an older child where other modes of treatment are not affordable

NCPCC 2005 - Conference Abstracts. Pediatric Oncall [serial online] 2006 [cited 15 May 2006(Supplement 5)];3. Available from:
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Plasma_exchange_GBS.asp