Case series of COVID-19 in patients with myasthenia gravis: a single institution experience.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the late 2019 outbreak of Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), causes a respiratory disease which could put myasthenia gravis patients at a greater risk of developing severe disease course. This paper presents a single-institution case series of hospitalized myasthenia gravis patients with COVID 19. We identified eight patients previously diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, four of whom presented with clear signs of myasthenia gravis symptom worsening on admission. No form of respiratory support was needed during the complete duration of stay for three patients, oxygen therapy was administered to two patients, while the remaining three patients required mechanical ventilation. Treatment was successful for seven patients, six of whom were discharged without any myasthenia gravis symptoms. One patient died after eleven days of intensive care unit treatment. Although treatment of patients with myasthenia gravis and COVID-19 patients is challenging, case series of myasthenia gravis patients with COVID-19 treated in our institution demonstrates relatively favorable treatment outcome. Our data seem to support the notion that immunosuppressive medication does not seem to result in worse outcomes. Our data also support the notion that intravenous immunoglobulin treatment is safe and should be administered to patients with myasthenia gravis and COVID-19 in case of myasthenia gravis worsening since benefits seem to greatly outweigh the risks.

Successful intravenous thrombolysis in acute ischemic stroke after reversal of dabigatran etexilate with idarucizumab at the end of therapeutic time window.

Dabigatran is a direct oral anticoagulant that is widely used for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation. We report a case of an 80-year-old stroke patient on dabigatran for permanent atrial fibrillation, who presented with an initial National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) of 8. Dabigatran was reversed with idarucizumab, and intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator (IV-tPA) was administrated beginning 4 h and 28 min after the symptom onset. The patient was discharged with an NIHSS of 1. Our case is an additional proof of safety and efficiency of idarucizumab in the clinical setting of ischemic stroke before the administration of IV-tPA.