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Value of Thymectomy for Myasthenia Gravis

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Surgery of the Thymus

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Abstract

Although the beneficial effect of thymectomy on myasthenia gravis (MG) has been proven with good immunologic arguments, this fact has not always been sufficiently clear. Many years have now elapsed since the time when Blalock pioneered thymic resection for MG (Blalock et al. 1939, 1941; Blalock 1944), and subsequently many other authors contributed in establishing the role of thymectomy in the treatment of MG (Keynes 1946, 1949; Eaton and Clagett 1955; Simpson 1958, 1960; Viets and Schwab 1960). Since then, many series have shown the superiority of early surgical treatment in comparison with long-term medical therapy and, with the tremendous decrease in operative mortality, even the most hesitant neurologists have been convinced.

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Authors
  1. Philippe Levasseur
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  2. Henri Le Brigand
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, 1011, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Jean-Claude Givel

  2. Service de Chirurgie A, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, 1011, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Marco Merlini  & Michael Dusmet  & 

  3. Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TH, UK

    David B. Clarke MB FRCS

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© 1990 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Levasseur, P., Le Brigand, H. (1990). Value of Thymectomy for Myasthenia Gravis. In: Givel, JC., Merlini, M., Clarke, D.B., Dusmet, M. (eds) Surgery of the Thymus. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-71076-6_30

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-71076-6_30

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-71078-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-71076-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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