Polyneuropathy in childhood.

Polyneuropathy is an uncommon neurologic disorder that occurs in childhood. An evaluation of 61 patients over a period of seven years showed the Guillain-Barré syndrome and degenerative polyneuropathies to be the most common diagnoses. Other etiologies included metabolic, toxic, and neuropathies associated with systemic diseases. A group of idiopathic neuropathies was identified in which an unusual finding was a large subgroup of children with chronic or progressive central nervous system disease.