Drs Sadalage & Maddison, Nottingham

The incidence of myasthenia gravis has been steadily increasing over the last 30-35 years, with the increase being far greater in the late onset (over 50 years of age) than in the early onset group, and the reason for this is unknown.

The project is multi-centric conducted at Nottingham, Oxford and Birmingham and all newly diagnosed (within the last 12 months) adult patients with myasthenia gravis who are not on immunosuppressants, will be recruited.

We aim to describe the symptoms and signs that the patients present with, collect ‘Quality of Life’ data and blood samples to determine if there is any difference in the immunological profiles between the early and late onset MG patients. So far, we have recruited 21 patients. Although no immunological data is available so far, the fact that majority of the recruits are over the age of 50 is thought-provoking. With further data collection and laboratory work, we hope to have some interesting results.