BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Comorbidity in myasthenia gravis (MG) is important for diagnosis, treatment and prognosis. Disease complexity was assessed by examining total drug treatment, immune therapy and comorbidity in a complete national MG cohort. METHODS All recipients of the MG-specific drug pyridostigmine 2004-2010 registered in the compulsory Norwegian Prescription Database who met the incl...

BACKGROUND Plasmapheresis can be useful in myasthenia gravis, Guillain Barré syndrome and chronic demyelinating inflammatory polyradiculoneuritis. AIM To report our experience with plasmapheresis in patients with neurological diseases. MATERIAL AND METHODS Retrospective review of plasmapheresis procedures done between 1995 and 2001, in a public hospital. Indications criteria, clinical resul...

Neuromuscular disorders are commonly encountered in the critical care setting. Patients with known neuromuscular disorders, such as Guillain-Barré syndrome or myasthenia gravis, are admitted when weakness compromises the patient’s ability to protect his or her airway or threatens ventilatory failure. Patients admitted with ventilatory failure of unknown cause may be diagnosed with a neuromuscul...

Plasmapheresis has been used widely in the treatment of myasthenia gravis and also in symptomatic thymectomized patients with short-term clinical improvement. But the utility of preoperative plasmapheresis in the outcome has not been widely studied. The authors analyzed its impact in the surgical outcome of thymic tumors with myasthenia gravis. We studied a total of 19 patients, who were operat...

The neuromuscular junction is vulnerable to autoimmune attack both at the pre-synaptic nerve terminal and at the post-synaptic muscle membrane. Antibodies directed to the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor at the muscle surface are the cause of myasthenia gravis in the majority of cases. Myasthenia gravis is an acquired condition, characterised by weakness and fatigability of the skeletal muscles...

BACKGROUND The pathogenesis of extraocular muscle (EOM) weakness in myasthenia gravis might involve a mechanism specific to the EOM. The aim of this study was to investigate characteristics of the EOM related to its susceptibility to myasthenia gravis. METHODS Female F344 rats and female Sprague-Dawley rats were assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group received inje...

INTRODUCTION Myasthenia gravis is a rare neuromuscular disorder associated with a reduction in the availability of acetylcholine receptors at the post-synaptic membranes of skeletal muscles. This is caused by the production of anti-acetylcholine receptor antibodies at the neuromuscular junction due to an autoimmune insult, leading to a compromised neuromuscular transmission. Verapamil can influ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Patients with neuromuscular diseases, as Myasthenia Gravis, react abnormally to anesthetics, depending on the technique and on the drugs. This report aimed at showing a case of Myasthenia Gravis patient submitted to thymectomy under total intravenous anesthesia with propofol and remifentanil. CASE REPORT Female Myasthenia Gravis patient, 52 years old, 72 kg, submitte...

OBJECTIVES To report a case of multifocal cortical encephalitis associated with thymoma and to establish an association of this thymoma-related paraneoplastic syndrome with voltage-gated potassium channel antibodies. DESIGN Case report. SETTING University hospital. PATIENT A 43-year-old woman with a history of seropositive myasthenia gravis and successfully treated invasive thymoma. Four ...

Purpose. We examined the role of miR-20b in development of thymoma-associated myasthenia gravis, especially in T cell proliferation and activation. Materials and Methods. Using qRT-PCR, we assessed expression levels of miR-20b and its target genes in cultured cells and patient samples and examined the proliferation of cultured cells, using MTT cell proliferation assays and flow cytometry based ...