Analysis of the records of 135 patients treated at an expert centre in Japan for an ocular form of autoimmune myasthenia found :
- 89% of patients on anticholinesterase drugs,
- 67% of patients were on one or more immunosuppressants (most often oral corticosteroids, tacrolimus, cyclosporine, etc.), with a wide variation in prescriptions from one hospital to another,
- 8 patients went into remission, six on anticholinesterase drugs and the other two spontaneously,
- a significantly lower proportion of refractory disease on immunosuppressants (2/90) than without (8/45),
- a lower rate of generalised myasthenia gravis in the hospitals that prescribed the most immunotherapy,
- persistence of symptoms in almost 61% of patients, all treatments combined.
While these results do not really lead to a clear-cut conclusion, they do argue in favour of the possible benefits of immunosuppressants in ocular myasthenia.
