[Disseminated polyneuropathy after coma].

An acute polyneuropathy developed during intensive-care treatment of three young men who had sustained severe multiple traumas and of one woman with bacterial meningoencephalitis. In the first case there was a predominantly distal paraparesis of the legs; in the second, flaccid neurological deficits occurred particularly in the areas of the left ulnar, peroneal and tibial nerves combined with paralysis of cranial nerves IX, X and XII. A symmetrical sensorimotor polyneuropathy with tetraplegia and cranial nerve deficits occurred in the third case, and an asymmetrical sensorimotor polyneuropathy in the female patient. In all four patients electrophysiological tests demonstrated the pattern of neurogenic damage. All patients had respiratory failure, malnutrition, septic fevers and acute renal failure requiring haemodialysis for two to five weeks. It is assumed that the polyneuropathy was of multifactorial genesis.