Influence of concomitant thymoma on effect of thymectomy for myasthenia gravis / 中华胸心血管外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the long term effect of video-assisted thoracoscopic thymectomy for myasth,enia gravis and the influence of concomitant thymoma.Methods 47 cases of myasthenia gravis were retrospectively reviewed who had received video-assisted thoracoscopic thymectomy from Apr.2001 through Oct.2009.The patients were separated to two groups with or without thymoma.Influence of oncologic factors was carefully studied.Results There were 20 males and 27 females with a mean age of 36.6 yrs.According to the typing system of the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America ( MGFA),the patients belonged to type Ⅰ 18 cases,type Ⅱ a 14 cases,type Ⅱ b 14 cases,and Ⅲa 1 case.22 patients were in the group with thymoma,and the other 25 in the group without thymoma.Until the deadline of follow-up time of Jun.2011,only two cases in non-thymomatous group were lost.Follow-up time was 20 to 122 months,mean 57 months.The complete stable remission rate(CSR),pharmacologic remission(PR),minimal manifestations(MM),worse(W),exacerbation(E) and died of myasthenia gravis(D) in non-thymomatous group were 78.3％,13.0％,4.3％,0,0 and 4.3％.In thymomatous group the values were 50.0％,22.7％,13.6％,4.5％,9.1％ and 0.Conclusion Video-assisted thoarcoscopic thymectomy has a satisfactory long term effect for myasthenia gravis.Thymomatous group has no different in overall effectiveness with that of non-thymomatous group although a probably lower complete stable remission rate is prompted.