PMID: 6408188Aug 1, 1983Paper

Effect of thymectomy on peripheral lymphocyte subsets in myasthenia gravis: selective effect on T-cells in patients with thymic atrophy

The Journal of Immunology : Official Journal of the American Association of Immunologists
B HaynesA D Roses

Abstract

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disease affecting nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. The clinical improvement that follows thymectomy in some myasthenic patients implicates thymic factors as well in the pathogenesis of MG. We have studied circulating immunoregulatory T cell subsets before and after thymectomy in 11 adult patients with MG. Six patients had thymic hyperplasia and five patients had atrophic thymus at the time of thymectomy. Before thymectomy, patients who subsequently were shown to have an atrophic thymus, had lower lymphocyte counts than either patients later shown to have a hyperplastic thymus (1315 +/- 143 lymphocytes/mm3 vs. 2434 +/- 350 lymphocytes/mm3, p less than 0.01), or age-matched controls (1315 +/- 143 lymphocytes/mm3 vs. 2636 +/- 589 lymphocytes/mm3, p less than 0.02). Moreover, after thymectomy, in MG patients with an atrophic thymus, there was a significant rise in lymphocyte count (from 1315 +/- 143 lymphocytes/mm3 to 2279 +/- 292 lymphocytes/mm3, p less than 0.02) beginning 3 days postthymectomy and persisting for at least 6 weeks thereafter. In comparison, patients with a hyperplastic thymus showed no change in circulating lymphocyte counts (p greater than 0.1). Enumeration of lymphocyte ...Continue Reading

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