Clinical outcome of thymectomy in myasthenia gravis patients-A report from Iran

Clinical outcome of thymectomy in myasthenia gravis patients-A report from Iran

Benyamin Seyfari, Farzad Fatehi, Abolfazl Shojaiefard, Mehdi Jafari, Ali Ghorbani-Abdehgah, Shirzad Nasiri, Aidin Yaghoobi-Notash, Behnam Molavi, Amir Hossein Latif, Reza Eslamian, Ali Mir, Ahmadreza Soroush Publication date 2018/1/1

Background: Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disease affecting acetylcholine postsynaptic receptor of voluntary muscles. Thymectomy is done in these patients and is a mainstay in the treatment of MG; however, the long-term result of surgery is still controversial. This study dealt with the investigation of the results of thymectomy in treatment, recovery and control of the symptoms of these patients.

Methods: This study was performed through a retrospective method in patients suffering from MG who underwent trans-sternal thymectomy between 2011 and 2016. We conducted thymectomy, excision of mediastinal mass and contents of tissues between the right and left phrenic nerves for all patients. Then, the effect of various variables including age, sex, time interval between onset of disease and surgery, thymus pathology and the dosage of drug on clinical response after surgery was determined using various …