Malignant Thymoma in Myasthenia Gravis

Abstract

THE first modern clinical and pathological descriptions of the disease that was to be named myasthenia gravis¹ were made by Wilks,² Erb³ and Goldflam.⁴ Only a few years later, in 1901, Weigert⁵ first described the association of a thymic tumor with myasthenia.By 1917 Bell⁶ had collected 56 autopsied cases of myasthenia, with a benign tumor of the thymus in 10 and a generalized enlargement of the gland in 17 others. Thus, approximately 50 per cent of the patients had thymic abnormalities. In 1936 Norris⁷ reported similar figures among 80 cases collected to that date in which the thymus had . . .