ABSTRACT
Objective: Since COVID-19 infection became a global public health problem, finding a treatment has been an emergency and vaccines are considered the only solution. Background: In the last months, a big amount of data has been published on COVID-19 and vaccines and are currently available for the general population, but little is still known regarding patients with myasthenia gravis. Design/Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study among a cohort of patients with Myasthenia gravis attending to the Neuromuscular Clinic of the University Hospital “Paolo Giaccone” of Palermo. Patients underwent a telephonic interview through a dedicated questionary about COVID-19 infection, vaccinations, and their effects on MG. Results: In our cohort 9 patients resulted positive to SARS-COV2 infection, 4 patients died for COVID-19, a patient worsened for MG, requiring respiratory support, whereas 3 patients were asymptomatic. Fifty-three patients completed the vaccination with minor side effects in 24 cases. Seventeen patients presented a worsening of symptoms. Conclusions: The reduced number of adverse events in our population suggests that vaccines for SARS-cov2 are safe in myasthenic patients that could take advantage of vaccination avoiding life-threatening complications such as myasthenic crisis and COVID-19 pneumonia. The continuation of the regular and periodic clinical follow-up will provide us data on the real effectiveness of vaccine prevention in the myasthenic population.
ABSTRACT
Background and aims. Since COVID-19 infection became a global public health problem, finding a treatment has been an emergency and vaccines are considered the only solution. In the last months, a big amount of data has been published on COVID-19 and vaccines and are currently available for the general population, but little is still known regarding patients with myasthenia gravis. Methods. We performed a cross-sectional study among a cohort of patients with Myasthenia gravis attending to the Neuromuscular Clinic of the University Hospital “Paolo Giaccone” of Palermo. Patients underwent a telephonic interview through a dedicated questionary about COVID-19 infection, vaccinations, and their effects on MG. Results. In our cohort 9 patients resulted positive to SARS-COV2 infection, 4 patients died for COVID-19, a patient worsened for MG, requiring respiratory support, whereas 3 patients were asymptomatic. Fifty-three patients completed the vaccination with minor side effects in 24 cases. Seventeen patients presented a worsening of symptoms. Conclusions. The reduced number of adverse events in our population suggests that vaccines for SARS-cov2 are safe in myasthenic patients that could take advantage of vaccination avoiding life-threatening complications such as myasthenic crisis and COVID-19 pneumonia. The continuation of the regular and periodic clinical follow- up will provide us data on the real effectiveness of vaccine prevention in the myasthenic population.