title: Acetylcholine receptor antibody as a diagnostic test for myasthenia gravis: results in 153 validated cases and 2967 diagnostic assays.
abstract: Anti-acetylcholine receptor (AChR) antibody was undetectable in 26/153 (17%) sera from myasthenia gravis patients assayed by standard RIA using human acetylcholine receptor. Eight of these were found to be positive with a modified protocol using a mixture of normal and denervated AChR, reducing the proportion of "negative" sera to 12%. Many of these were from patients with a short history; two such patients later developed low positive values. Anti-AChR without clinical evidence of myasthenia was found in one of three monozygotic twins of myasthenia gravis patients, and in one of thirty other first degree relatives of a further 17 patients. Anti-AChR is a valuable and highly specific diagnostic test which, with the assay used here, is positive in about 88% of patients with clinical features of myasthenia gravis.
mesh_terms: D000918:Antibody Specificity; D001323:Autoantibodies / Q000032:analysis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008297:Male; D009157:Myasthenia Gravis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy; D011950:Receptors, Cholinergic / Q000276:immunology*; D013934:Thymectomy
chemical_list: D001323:Autoantibodies; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents; D011950:Receptors, Cholinergic