Prevalence of Cardiac Arrhythmia in Myasthenia Gravis (P7.057)

OBJECTIVE: To assess the prevalence of arrhythmia in Myasthenia Gravis (MG) patients and its association with clinical characteristics of MG patients. BACKGROUND: MG is an autoimmune post synaptic neuromuscular junction disorder characterized by skeletal muscle weakness and fatigue. Few studies showed presence of cardiac involvement in MG in the form of heart failure, arrhythmia and myocarditis. Some myasthenia gravis patients have antibodies that bind in a cross-striational pattern to skeletal and heart muscle tissue sections (striational antibodies),which are found mainly in patients with Thymoma. DESIGN/METHODS: We conducted retrospective chart review of patients from 2000-2010 with diagnosis of MG. We reviewed all the patients for presences of any cardiac arrhythmia significant to require intervention. The data was analyzed using P value and odds ratio (OR) to check association of arrhythmia in MG patients with Thymectomy, Ach receptor antibodies, bulbar and generalized weakness. RESULTS: Total of 100 patients were included in the study. Average age of our patients was 69 years. 54 patients were male and 46 were female. 16 patients had arrhythmia- 11 had atrial fibrillation/ flutter and 5 had sick sinus syndrome requiring pacemaker implantation. There was significant correlation between thymectomy and presence of arrhythmia (P=0.02 and OR=0.18) and patients with generalized weakness (P=0.04, OR= 0.30). There was no significant association noted between presences of bulbar weakness, presence of AchR antibody with arrhythmia. CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows 17[percnt] of MG patients had cardiac arrhythmia which might suggest autoimmune target for both skeletal and cardiac muscles in MG. Also, patients with MG who had thymectomy were less likely to have cardiac arrhythmia which suggests possible protective effect of thymectomy in MG patients in preventing arrhythmia. Study Supported by: none Disclosure: Dr. Gandhi has nothing to disclose. Dr. Boddepalli has nothing to disclose. Dr. Govindarajan has nothing to disclose. Dr. Salgado has received personal compensation in an editorial capacity from Belvoir Media Group.