Prednisolone-sparing effect of cyclosporin A therapy for very elderly patients with myasthenia gravis.

Seika Nakamura, Satoshi Kaneko, Akiyo Shinde, Jun-Ichi Morita, Kengo Fujita, Satoshi Nakano, Hirofumi Kusaka

Department of Neurology, Kansai Medical University, Osaka, Japan.

Neuromuscular disorders : NMD 2013 Feb

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Three very elderly (over 80years old) patients having generalized myasthenia gravis without thymoma were treated with cyclosporin A and followed for up to 24months. Cyclosporin A therapy quickly improved myasthenia gravis symptoms in all cases, which allowed a rapid reduction in the prednisolone dose and improvement of prednisolone-related hyperglycemia and hypertension. Combination therapy with prednisolone and low-dose cyclosporin A not only improved the clinical symptoms of the very elderly myasthenia gravis patients but also resulted in a rapid reduction in prednisolone dosage and prednisolone-related side effects. Attention should be paid to cyclosporin A-related renal dysfunction. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Citation

Seika Nakamura, Satoshi Kaneko, Akiyo Shinde, Jun-Ichi Morita, Kengo Fujita, Satoshi Nakano, Hirofumi Kusaka. Prednisolone-sparing effect of cyclosporin A therapy for very elderly patients with myasthenia gravis. Neuromuscular disorders : NMD. 2013 Feb;23(2):176-9