The current role of thymectomy for myasthenia gravis.

Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disease characterized by muscle weakness and fatigability due to a reduction in available acetylcholine receptors at the neuromuscular junction. Treatment with anticholinesterase drugs and corticosteroids has improved the prognosis for patients with this disease. However, controversy continues concerning the indications for thymectomy. During a 9 year period, 27 patients who underwent thymectomy by median sternotomy were reviewed. Eighty-one percent of these patients benefited from the procedure. Clinical improvement did not correlate with age, sex, duration of symptoms, severity of disease or thymic histology, This suggests that the indications for thymectomy should be liberalized to include most patients with generalized myasthenia who fail to respond readily to conventional medical therapy. The importance of immunosuppression nd plasmapheresis in the therapy of myasthenia gravis awaits further delineation of the immune defect associated with the disease.