A Simple Clinical Predictive Score for Postoperative Myasthenic Crisis

A recent study has shown that thymectomy improves outcomes over a 3-year period in patients with nonthymomatous myasthenia gravis (MG). However, postoperative myasthenic crisis with respiratory muscle paralysis can be a severe complication and reportedly occurs in 12% to 18% of patients. In small studies, several factors have been associated with increased risk for myasthenic crisis after thymectomy, including bulbar symptoms, low vital capacity (VC), disease severity, operative factors, and disease duration.

In this study, 393 patients with MG who underwent thymectomy were studied at 6 tertiary centers in Japan (275 patients for score derivation and 118 for validation). The investigators retrospectively reviewed clinical characteristics, di…