Disorder resembling Guillain-Barre syndrome on initiation of statin therapy

We report a disorder resembling Guillain-Barre syndrome, occurring on initiation of simvastatin, in a 58-year-old man, who had experienced a similar but milder episode after starting pravastatin 6 months earlier. This case suggests that acute polyradiculoneuropathy may represent a rare but serious side-effect of statin treatment. It also raises the issue of the pathophysiology of acute neuropathy on statin exposure, with a hypersensitivity reaction resulting in an immune-mediated process being possible instead of the hypothesized mitochondrial dysfunction in chronic cases.