Background: Disease burden indicators assess the impact of disease on a population. They integrate mortality and disability in a single indicator. This allows setting priorities for health services and focusing resources. Objective: To analyze the burden of neurological diseases in Peru from 1990-2015. Methods: A descriptive study that used the epidemiological data published by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation of Global Burden of Diseases from 1990 to 2015. Disease burden was measured using disability-adjusted life years (DALY) and their corresponding 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs), which results from the addition of the years of life lost (YLL) and years lived with disability (YLD). Results: The burden of neurological diseases in Peru were 9.06 and 10.65%, in 1990 and 2015, respectively. In 2015, the main causes were migraine, cerebrovascular disease (CVD), neonatal encephalopathy (NE), and Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias (ADD). This last group and nervous system cancer (NSC) increased 157 and 183% of DALY compared to 1990, respectively. Young population (25 to 44 years old) and older (>85 years old) were the age groups with the highest DALY. The neurological diseases produced 11.06 and 10.02% of the national YLL (CVD as the leading cause) and YLD (migraine as the main cause), respectively. Conclusion: The burden of disease (BD) increased by 1.6% from 1990 to 2015. The main causes were migraine, CVD, and NE. ADD and NSC doubled the DALY in this period. These diseases represent a significant cause of disability attributable to the increase in the life expectancy of our population among other factors. Priority actions should be taken to prevent and treat these causes.

MS is unpredictable regarding clinical symptoms; however, certain symptoms represent the preferred localization of white matter lesions such as brainstem, spinal cord; or optic nerve. To investigate the epidemiological, clinical, and imaging characteristics of MS patients in a national referral center in Peru, and to evaluate whether the type of symptom at onset relates with the time to making an MS diagnosis. Retrospective study of MS patients at the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Neurológicas between January 2010 and December 2018. Four different syndromes were selected for analysis as symptom onset (optic neuritis, brainstem syndrome, myelitis, and others). we identified 268 patients for whom a diagnosis of MS had been given; after excluding misdiagnosed patients (33 Neuromyelitis optica), lost or incomplete records, 121 patients were included. The majority of patients (46.6%) were born in Lima. Female to male ratio was 1.37 to 1, mean age at diagnosis was 31 years. At onset, myelitis was present in 35% of RRMS patients, followed by brainstem syndrome (25%) and optic neuritis (18%). Brainstem syndrome was statistically significant predictor for earlier diagnosis (adjusted HR: 2.09; p = 0.015). Brainstem syndrome as an initial presentation of MS in Peru is related to an earlier diagnosis.

Objective: Several cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection have been described. This study illustrated the demographic, clinical, and neurophysiological characteristics of patients with GBS and COVID-19, as well as associated factors with disability at discharge.Materials and methods: A retrospective analytical observational study was conducted. It included patients diagnosed with GBS admitted in a national reference center in Peru between 2019 and 2021. Epidemiological, clinical, neurophysiological, and cerebrospinal fluid data were analyzed. A multivariate analysis, using the generalized linear model, was performed, considering the presence of disability at discharge as the dependent variable.Results: Eight-one subjects diagnosed with GBS were included. The mean age was 46.8 years (SD: 15.2), with a predominance of males (61.73%). The most frequent clinical presentation was the classic sensory-motor form in 74 cases (91.36%) with AIDP (82.35%) as the most frequent neurophysiological pattern in the group with COVID-19, while AMAN pattern predominated (59.26%) in those without COVID-19 (p = <0.000). The disability prevalence ratio at discharge between subjects with COVID-19 and those without COVID-19 was 1.89 (CI 1.06–3.34), p = 0.030, adjusted for age, sex, and neurophysiological subtype.Conclusion: The neurophysiologic subtype AIDP, and a higher disability were associated with the presence of COVID-19.