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So I can't think of a reason why it's important to know exactly which antibodies are causing the MG, once it's determined that the patient has MG (of course it would be very different if the problem was CMS, which isn't an autoimmune disease). Can anyone else?
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Not all autoimmune disease are the same and the treatment is not uniform.
For instance-Rituximab is very effective treatment for Rhematoid Arthritis, but much less so for SLE.
Likewise IVIG is much less effective in MuSK than it is in AchR MG. On the other hand PLEX tends to have a dramatic (albeit short lived) effect in MuSK and less so in AhcR MG.
MuSK is caused by IgG4 antibodies (which mostly exert their function by blocking the function of cellular pathways) whereas AchR MG is caused by IgG1 antibodies (which mostly cause damage to membrane proteins by activating complement). So, it is not surprising that treatment which is very effective in most AchR patients is much less so in MuSK patients.
So, yes it is important to know (even though it is not always possible) what type of antibodies a patient has.
01-23-2013, 03:58 PM
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