OBJECTIVE To investigate repetitive stimulation of the long thoracic nerve as a reliable and technically undemanding method for evaluating respiratory muscle function in myasthenia gravis. METHODS 15 patients with myasthenia gravis and positive single fibre electromyography had repetitive stimulation of the long thoracic nerve together with serratus anterior recordings. There were 20 normal c...

I am concerned by an article “Detecting Key Genes Regulated by miRNAs in Dysfunctional Crosstalk Pathway of Myasthenia Gravis” by Cao et al., 2015 [1]. In this study, the authors used data from public databases to compare microarray data from the thymus and miRNome data from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). They analyzed the regulation of mRNAs from the thymus by miRNAs from peripher...

A case of laryngeal myasthenia gravis in a 65-year-old woman presenting with hoarseness as the sole symptom is reported. Voice spectrography was performed before and after injection of intravenous edrophonium. There was a marked improvement in the patient's voice after the administration of edrophonium, which was confirmed by the changes seen on the sound spectrogram. This was the only objectiv...

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...