Study of demographic, clinical, laboratory and electromyographic symptoms in Myasthenia Gravis patients referred to the neurology clinic of Rasoul Akram hospital in 2015

Introduction. Myasthenia Gravis is an autoimmune disorder, which is clinically a neuromuscular illness that shows itself as muscular weakness and fatigue. The diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis depends on clinical evaluation, electrophysiological assessment, and autoantibody detection in serum. Known antibodies could be found in about 90% of the patients, which had a causative relation with disease symptoms. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was a survey on demographic features, clinical, laboratorial, and electromyographic signs of patients with Myasthenia Gravis referred to the neurology clinic of Rasoul Akram hospital. Materials and methods. This study was a descriptive cross-sectional one that used an easy sampling method: 54 patients with Myasthenia Gravis who were referred to the neurology clinic of Rasoul Akram were elected in 2015. The patients’ information was recorded in the checklists based on the variables and the data were analyzed by using SPSS software version 21. The results. The demographic and the clinical symptoms data of 54 known Myasthenia Gravis patients, whose diagnosis was made according to the clinical symptoms, electrophysiological findings and autoantibody detection, were analyzed in this paper. There were 31 females (57.4%) and 23 males (42.6%) with an average age of 47.3 years. The average age of diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis in these patients was 42.8 years. Among the patients, 19 (35.2%) had a hospitalization history because of their disease. Due to laboratory findings, 10 patients (18.5%) had Musk antibody, 34 patients (62.9%) had acetylcholine receptor antibodies and 10 patients (18.5%) had none of these two antibodies. Moreover, in electromyographic findings, 38 patients (70.37%) had positive findings and 16 patients (29.6%) had normal findings. Discussion and Conclusion. Due to the chronic nature of this disease, and its rising trend, educating the people for the early detection of the disease, was necessary as soon as possible so as they would be treated and an acceptable life would be provided for them.