Advances in the Pathogenesis and Therapy of Inflammatory

he inflammatory neuropathies are a diverse group of peripheral nerve disorders presumed to have an immune mediated pathogenesis. They are charac-terised pathologically by inflammatory infiltration of the peripheral nerves associated with destruction of myelin and/or axons. The inflammatory neuropathies are typi-fied by the idiopathic demyelinating neuropathies, both chronic and acute, and the closely related neuropathies associated with paraproteinaemia. However, vasculitic, infectious and parainfectious, paraneoplastic neu-ropathies and more recently diabetic plexopathy1 are included. Some of these may be thought of as primary disorders of the peripheral nervous system (e.g. Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP)) and oth