Abstract
Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disorder caused by antibodies directed against the postsynaptic acetylcholine receptor (AchR) of skeletal muscle [1,2]. The disease carries a 2:1 female to male predominance and follows a bimodal age distribution, peaking before age 50 among women and again in late midlife among men [3, 4]. Older cases of newly diagnosed myasthenia are more commonly associated with thymoma. Myasthenic crisis, defined as respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation, is a potentially life-threatening complication that occurs in approximately 15 to 20% of patients [2, 5]. An even greater percentage of all patients affected with the disease experience some degree of respiratory muscle weakness [2, 5, 6].
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Janjua, N., Mayer, S.A. (2003). Critical Care of Myasthenic Crisis. In: Vincent, JL. (eds) Intensive Care Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5548-0_71
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5548-0_71
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