Myasthenia gravis, as a disease associated with impaired neuromuscular transmission and manifested by muscle weakness and fatigue, necessarily leads to the disability of patients. There were analyzed terms and the factors influencing upon disability in 52 patients with myasthenia, 67 per cent of whom had a disability group. The duration of the disease from the beginning to the referral to the examination in the Bureau of the Medical and Social Expertise was revealed to amount in average of 2.68 ± 0.44 years. Out of factors influencing upon more earlier disability there were noted primary or early generalization of the process, severe crisis course and pronounced severity according to MGFA, poor compensation on anticholinesterase drugs, inadequate therapy. There was noted the positive effect of thymectomy on the consequent course of the disease, only 2 out of the 18 operated patients showed its further progression.

Autoimmune ophthalmopathy (AIO) is currently regarded as an independent genetically determined autoimmune disease characterized by lesions of the organs of vision and can be combined with other endocrine and non-endocrine autoimmune disorders. There are few publications about the combination and the differential diagnosis of myasthenia gravis and AIO. The authors present a clinical case of the combination of myasthenia gravis and autoimmune eye disease with the symptoms of the malignant exophthalmos. Our case report is of interest because the symptoms of AIO not only remain but became worse in pharmacological hypothyroidism that confirms the independence of this disease.

The clinical features of the disease-age, the debut features and the course were analyzed in patients with myasthenia. The revealed clinical features conformed to the literature data: the prevalence of women among the patients, generalized form, oculomotor disorders and ptosis as the irst symptoms, the debut at a young age.