A REVIEW ON MYASTHENIA GRAVIS

Abstract

Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disorder and a disease of neuromuscular transmission in which antibodies attack the cholinergic receptors and some specific components of the neuromuscular junction of the skeletal muscles. It involves painless muscular weakness and is a very rare condition. The patient is unable to contract the muscle and feels tired. Most often, the muscles which get affected are the extra-ocular muscles and the bulbar muscles due to which the patient has drooping eyelid, diplopia, difficulty in chewing, difficulty in swallowing and slurring of speech. This disease often affects women who are under the age of 35 and the men who are about 60 years old or more. Most often, there are some thymic abnormalities such as thymoma or thymic hyperplasia in the patients with Myasthenia gravis. Different types of tests are available to diagnose Myasthenia gravis like the tensilon test, electrophysiological tests, etc. more. Still, the research is going on the molecular immunology but a lot have to be discovered yet about Myasthenia gravis.