This is a recently published important paper comparing thymectomy to medical therapy on the outcome of myasthenia gravis (MG). There have been very few trials on the same and the paper is basically a meta-analysis of previous data. Physicians and neurologists often ask me regarding the efficacy of surgery for this vexing disease.
This paper gives some additional scientific statistical basis about the usefulness of surgery. The authors from the School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York did a systematic meta-analysis review of the literature to sift the evidence. They followed very strict criteria for inclusion: Observational studies on thymectomy compared with nonoperative treatment for MG, Patients with generalized non-thymomatous MG, Defined outcome or remission rates for both patients undergoing thymectomy and nonsurgical controls, and English-language articles and human studies.…
