Clinical Follow-up Study of Myasthenia Gravis

ABSTRACT

The authors studied clinical features, thymus histology, acetylcholine receptor antibody titers and the responses to multiple modalities of treatment in a consecutive series of 151 patients to know the characteristics of myasthenia gravis in Korea and to clarify the selection of theraputic regimens. The MG subjects were enrolled in Seoul National University Hospital Myasthenia Gravis Registry and followed for at least over 12 months from 1986 to 1991. The overall clinical features were nearly the same as other previous reports in other country except that pure ocular MG group showed younger age of onset and no significant sexual difference. When we classified 151 MG subjects by several criteria. The most valid grouping variables were whether the thymoma was present or not and whether the symptoms were generalized or not. However there was no difference of clinical features when they were divided by age of onset. Therefore we thought that it may be reasonable to classify the MG subjects by a few variables listed above for it will be helpful for comparing therapeutic modalities, estimating the prognosis, and understanding the basic pathomechanisms underlying each subgroups.