TY  - JOUR
AU  - Otsuka, Ryo
AU  - Ueda, Kazuhiro
AU  - Tanaka, Toshiki
AU  - Murakami, Junichi
AU  - Hayashi, Masataro
AU  - Hamano, Kimikazu
PY  - 2018
TI  - Who will benefit from thymectomy for myasthenia gravis? Is there any role for this procedure in elderly patients?
JF  - Annals of Translational Medicine; Vol 7, No 1 (January 14, 2019): Annals of Translational Medicine
Y2  - 2018
KW  - 
N2  - Background: The proportion of elderly patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) is increasing over time. Thoracoscopic extended thymectomy has been shown to achieve a superior short-term outcome to transsternal procedures. Therefore, the long-term clinical outcome should be re-examined, particularly in elderly patients.    Methods: We evaluated the long-term clinical outcomes after extended thymectomy in 30 MG patients with or without thymoma. Twenty-one (70%) patients underwent surgery by 65 years of age, and the remaining 9 (30%) underwent surgery after 65 years of age. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to determine the influence of various factors on the improvement in MG symptoms.   Results: The characteristics in the elderly patients were comparable to those in the younger patients, except for the age at surgery. Symptoms of MG improved in 4 of the 9 (44%) elderly patients and in 18 of the 21 (86%) younger patients (P=0.0192). One elderly patient who underwent transsternal thymectomy died suddenly on postoperative day 3, probably due to a MG crisis: no pathological abnormalities were detected by an autopsy. A multivariate analysis identified an age at thymectomy of 
UR  - https://atm.amegroups.org/article/view/22793