Study of anti-striational and anti-thyroid antibodies in patients with myasthenia gravis.

The study was carried out in 74 patients out of whom 46 with generalized myasthenia gravis and 28 with the ocular form of disease--all in acute state, ranging in Osserman's severity scale between I-IV; the age at onset of disease varied between 18-79 years. It showed anti-striational antibodies in 31% of the patients and anti-thyroid antibodies in 40%, as compared with 41 controls. Likewise it was observed that the presence of anti-striational antibodies with significant high values was associated with the presence of thymomas in 16 generalized myasthenia gravis patients and in 3 ocular myasthenia gravis patients (p < 0.001). Anti-thyroid antibodies were more frequently observed in ocular myasthenia gravis (23 cases) as compared to generalized myasthenia gravis (7 cases) with significant high levels (p < 0.001). The results obtained showed that the study of anti-striational antibodies can be of great utility in the diagnosis of thymoma, and that the study of anti-thyroid antibodies can be of great utility to sustain the clinical diagnosis of ocular myasthenia gravis. The presence of anti-striational and of anti-thyroid antibodies showed a basic alteration of immunoregulatory mechanisms of maintaining immune tolerance in myasthenia gravis patients.