Journal
JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY
Volume 259, Issue 7, Pages 1312-1316Publisher
SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
DOI: 10.1007/s00415-011-6344-y
Keywords
Myasthenia gravis; Anti-Kv1.4 antibodies
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Funding
- Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture [23591255]
- Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [23591255] Funding Source: KAKEN
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Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disease characterized by skeletal muscle weakness mainly caused by acetylcholine receptor antibodies. MG can be divided into generalized and ocular, and into early-onset (< 50 years of age) and late-onset (a parts per thousand yen50 years of age). Anti-Kv1.4 antibodies targeting alpha-subunits (Kv1.4) of the voltage-gated potassium K+ channel occurs frequently among patients with severe MG, accounting for 18% of a Japanese MG population. The aim of this study was to characterize the clinical features and serological associations of anti-Kv1.4 antibodies in a Caucasian MG population with mild and localized MG. Serum samples from 129 Caucasian MG patients with mainly ocular symptoms were tested for the presence of anti-Kv1.4 antibodies and compared to clinical and serological parameters. There were 22 (17%) anti-Kv1.4 antibody-positive patients, most of them women with late-onset MG, and all of them with mild MG. This contrasts to the Japanese anti-Kv1.4 antibody-positive patients who suffered from severe MG with bulbar symptoms, myasthenic crisis, thymoma, myocarditis and prolonged QT time on electrocardiography, despite equal anti-Kv1.4 antibody occurrence in both populations. No other clinical or serological parameters influenced anti-Kv1.4 antibody occurrence.
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