Prognosis of Ocular Myasthenia Gravis

Abstract

Conversion rates from ocular to generalized myasthenia gravis may be lower than previously reported both in immunosuppressed and nonimmunosuppressed patients. A subset of patients may continue to convert to generalized disease beyond 2 years from onset of symptoms, and close monitoring should be continued.

Prediction of myasthenia gravis generalization under immunosuppressive therapy in Northwest China

“…Contrast to 90% of conversion rate without immunosuppressive treatments, only 38 patients (17.0%) of 223 OMG patients under sufficient immunosuppressive treatments converted to GMG in the present study. This result was consistent with previous studies which compared the conversion rate of the immunosuppressed group and the non-immunosuppressed group [6,7,13,14]. Yet the predictors for these patients who received early immunosuppressive therapy still remain unknown.…”

“…Reports deemed that OMG patients have lower conversion rates with longer disease duration [13,24,26]. In our study, disease duration came out of multivariate logistic regression analysis as the predictors of GMG conversion.…”

“…As the only controlled factor, immunosuppressive treatments have been applied early for OMG patients intending to achieve the decline of generalization risk [2,4,12]. While some studies found small partial of OMG patients still converted to GMG even under sufficient immunosuppressive treatments [13].…”

Ocular Myasthenia: Clinical Features and Diagnosis

“…Previous studies have reported rates of generalization between 7-36% in the paediatric population [7]. However, in the study conducted by Nagia et al, a much lower overall conversion rate of 21% was reported [8].…”

“…However, these patients should not be assured that the risk of conversion after 2 years is minimal, since previous reports showed that 30% of patients convert beyond two years and therefore should continue to be monitored in the long-term [8].…”