Autoantibody levels as biomarkers of disease activity in the management of myasthenia gravis

Abstract

We appreciate Meisel et al. [1] for exploring the correlation between antibody level and activity of myasthenia gravis (MG). However, some concerns are raised here.The correlation between titin antibody level and MG severity was found to be different in various patients with different thymus pathology and related to different therapeutic mechanisms. In Chen et al.'s study [2], the cross-sectional correlation was much higher in MG patients with thymoma than in those with hyperplastic and normal thymus, and prevalence of titin antibody was associated with different thymomatous pathology. The higher correlation between antibody level and severity was presumed to be as a result of a complex mechanism of thymoma instead of a direct effect by titin antibody. In Liu et al.'s study [3], thymomatous patients constituted a major proportion in all three treatment groups. The decrease of titin

Editorial: Phenotypes of myasthenia gravis, volume II

“…The reported results vary with different detection methods. The relationship between these culprit antibodies and MG phenotypes should be examined, including the association with severity and courses of MG (6,7).…”

Reply to the Letter to the Editor in response to “Role of autoantibody levels as biomarkers in the management of patients with myasthenia gravis: A systematic review and expert appraisal”

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We appreciate the comments from Li et al [1] on aspects of our article entitled "Role of Autoantibody Levels as Biomarkers in the Management of Patients With Myasthenia Gravis: A Systematic Review and Expert Appraisal." [2] We agree that titin autoantibody Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

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