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Report of 27 Patients in 12 Families and Review of 164 Patients in 73 Families

Tatsuji Namba, MD, PhD; Norman G. Brunner, MD; Stuart B. Brown, MD; Masahito Muguruma, MD, PhD; David Grob, MD

Arch Neurol. 1971;25(1):49-60.

Abstract
Familial myasthenia gravis, excluding neonatal myasthenia gravis, occurred in 3.8% of our 702 myasthenic patients and in 3.4% of reported patients, an incidence greater than in the general population (P < 0.001). The disease occurred in siblings (95 patients in 44 families), including six sets of twins, cousins (21 in 9), fathers and children (16 in 6), mothers and children (9 in 4), second cousins (6 in 3), and aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews (17 in 7). Familial myasthenia gravis resembles the nonfamilial disease in male to female ratio, clinical manifestations, response to anticholinesterase medication, and occasional association with hyperthyroidism or rheumatoid arthritis, but begins at an earlier age, especially in men, tends to have a slow and benign course, and is associated with lower incidence of peripheral muscle involvement, remission, mortality, thymoma, and striation-binding globulin.

Author Affiliations
Brooklyn, NY

From the Department of Medicine, Maimonides Medical Center and State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication Jan 13, 1971.

Read in part before the Ninth International Congress of Neurology, New York, Sept 22, 1969.

Reprint requests to Maimonides Medical Center, 4802 Tenth Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11219 (Dr. Namba).

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