New article published by the unit: “Reduced Number of Thymoma CTLA4-Positive Cells Is Associated With a Higher Probability of Developing Myasthenia Gravis”

The Neuromuscular Diseases Unit of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau has just published a new article:

Reduced Number of Thymoma CTLA4-Positive Cells Is Associated With a Higher Probability of Developing Myasthenia Gravis. Álvarez-Velasco R, Dols-Icardo O, El Bounasri S, López-Vilaró L, Trujillo JC, Reyes-Leiva D, Suárez-Calvet X, Cortés-Vicente E, Illa I, Gallardo E. Neurol Neuroimmunol Neuroinflamm . 2023 Jan 25;10(2):e200085

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is  an autoimmune disease associated with  thymoma in 10%-15% of cases. Polymorphisms in the CTLA4 gene have been associated with the development of MG.  Forty-one patients with thymoma were studied. Of them, 23 had  MG (56.1%).

Patients with MG had fewer CTLA4-positive cells in the thymoma than non-MG patients. However, MG was present in a similar proportion of patients for all genotypes, although, a nonsignificant trend toward a lower CTLA4-positive cell count was observed among carriers of the rs231775 polymorphism vs noncarriers. We conclude that a reduced CTLA4 expression in thymoma may predispose to a higher risk of developing MG.