Myasthenia Gravis Plasma & Serum Samples
Bay Biosciences provides high-quality, biopsy tissue samples. FFPE tissue blocks with matching fresh, frozen sera (serum), plasma, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) bio-fluids from patients diagnosed with myasthenia gravis (MG) disease.
Moreover, the serum, plasma and PBMCs are processed from myasthenia gravis (MG) disease patient’s peripheral whole-blood using customized collection and processing protocols.
Furthermore, the biopsy tissue and matched biofluid samples are collected from unique patients diagnosed with myasthenia gravis (MG) disease and are provided to a valued pharmaceutical customer for research, discovery and drug development.
Myasthenia Gravis (MG) Overview
In fact, myasthenia gravis (MG) is a neuromuscular disease that causes weakness in the skeletal muscles, which are the muscles the body uses for movement.
The name myasthenia gravis, which is Latin and Greek in origin, means “grave, or serious, muscle weakness.”
It occurs when communication between nerve cells and muscles becomes impaired. This impairment prevents crucial muscle contractions from occurring, resulting in muscle weakness.
According to the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation Of America approximately 36,000 to 60,000 cases of myasthenia gravis are estimated in the United States. However, as myasthenia gravis often remains underdiagnosed, the prevalence of myasthenia gravis disease is most likely higher.
Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a rare long-term condition that causes muscle weakness. It most commonly affects the muscles that control the eyes and eyelids, facial expressions, chewing, swallowing and speaking.
But it can affect most parts of the body. Myasthenia gravis (MG) disease can occur regardless of race, gender and age. Moreover, Myasthenia gravis typically starting in women under 40 and men over 60. Myasthenia gravis disease does not have researchers thinking it is directly inherited nor contagious, but it may occur in more than one member of the same family.
About 10 percent of patients with myasthenia gravis experience a potentially life-threatening complication in which these respiratory muscles weaken to the point that breathing is dangerously impaired, and the affected individual requires ventilation assistance.
Myasthenia Crisis
This respiratory failure, which we call a myasthenic crisis, may be triggered by stresses such as infections or reactions to medications.
It does not transmit via intimate or any form of human contact. There is no known cure for myasthenia gravis, but there are many effective treatments available that can make managing life with myasthenia gravis easier.
Myasthenia gravis (MG) is treatable with drugs that suppress the immune system or boost the signals between nerve and muscle. Surgeries and other procedures are also helpful in many cases.
Most patients with the MG disease are able to manage their symptoms and lead active lives, and a few experience remissions lasting many years. In about 10% to 15% of cases, MG begins in childhood (juvenile onset), which tends to progress slowly and has a high incidence of remission.
Signs and Symptoms of Myasthenia Gravis (MG)
Major symptom of myasthenia gravis (MG) disease is weakness in the voluntary skeletal muscles, which are muscles under your control. The failure of muscles to contract normally occurs because they can’t respond to nerve impulses.
Without proper transmission of the impulse, the communication between nerve and muscle is blocked and weakness results. Weakness associated with myasthenia gravis (MG) disease typically gets worse with more activity and improves with rest.
The onset of the disorder may be sudden, and symptoms often are not immediately recognized as myasthenia gravis. The degree of muscle weakness involved in myasthenia gravis varies greatly among individuals.
Following are the common signs and symptoms of myasthenia gravis (MG) disease:
- A change in facial expression
- Drooping of one or both eyelids (ptosis)
- Difficulty speaking
- Difficulty swallowing
- Difficulty walking up stairs or lifting objects
- Blurred or double vision (diplopia)
- Facial paralysis
- Impaired speech (dysarthria)
- Trouble breathing due to muscle weakness
- Problems with chewing food
- Shortness of breath
- Fatigue
- Hoarseness in voice
- Weakness in the arms, hands, fingers, legs, and neck
Sometimes the severe weakness of myasthenia gravis may cause respiratory failure, which requires immediate emergency medical care.
Myasthenia Gravis (MG) Crisis
A myasthenic crisis is a medical emergency that occurs when the muscles that control breathing weaken to the point where individuals require a ventilator to help them breathe. Infection, stress, surgery, or an adverse reaction to medication may trigger it.
According to national institute of neurological disorders and stroke, approximately 15 to 20 percent of patients with myasthenia gravis experience at least one myasthenic crisis. However, up to one-half of people may have no obvious cause for their myasthenic crisis.
Certain medications have been shown to cause myasthenia gravis. However, sometimes doctors may still use these medications if it is more important to treat an underlying condition.
Causes of Myasthenia Gravis (MG)
Myasthenia gravis disease is an autoimmune disease, which means it’s the result of the immune system (the body’s natural defense against infection) mistakenly attacking a healthy part of the body.
In Myasthenia gravis (MG) an error in the transmission of nerve impulses to muscles occurs. This results in interruption of normal communication between the nerve and muscle at the neuromuscular junction. This is the place where nerve cells connect with the muscles they control.
In an autoimmune condition, antibodies, which are proteins that normally attack foreign, harmful substances in the body, attack the neuromuscular junction.
Damage to the neuromuscular membrane reduces the effect of the neurotransmitter substance acetylcholine, which is a crucial substance for communication between nerve cells and muscles. This results in muscle weakness.
Additional Causes
Myasthenia gravis is caused by a problem with the signals sent between the nerves and the muscles. In myasthenia gravis, the immune system damages the communication system between the nerves and muscles, making the muscles weak and easily tired.
It’s not clear why this happens, but it’s been linked to issues with the thymus gland (a gland in the chest that’s part of the immune system). Most patients with myasthenia gravis disease have a thymus gland that’s larger than normal. Around one in ten people have an abnormal growth of the thymus called a thymoma.
Diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis (MG)
Myasthenia gravis patients need to go through a complete physical exam, as well as discuss a detailed history of their symptoms with the physician.
Patients also go through a neurological exam to confirm the diagnosis of myasthenia gravis and rule out other similar conditions. This may consist of:
- Firstly, checking for muscle tone
- Second, looking for muscle weakness
- Moreover, checking the reflexes
- Furthermore, making sure that the eyes move properly
- In addition, sensation test in different areas of the body
- Finally, testing motor functions, like touching your finger to your nose
Other tests that can help the doctor diagnose myasthenia gravis disease include:
- First, blood tests for antibodies associated with MG
- Moreover, repetitive nerve stimulation test
- Next, edrophonium (Tensilon) test
- Lastly, MRI and CT scans to rule out a tumor.
Several tests were performed to confirm the diagnosis of myasthenia gravis.
- A Physical and Neurological Exam: A physician will first review an individual’s medical history and conduct a physical examination. In a neurological examination, the physician will check muscle strength and tone, coordination, sense of touch, and look for impairment of eye movements.
- An Edrophonium Test: This test uses injections of edrophonium chloride to briefly relieve weakness in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG).The drug blocks the breakdown of acetylcholine and temporarily increases the levels of acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction. It is usually used to test ocular muscle weakness.
- Blood Tests: Most patients with myasthenia gravis have abnormally elevated levels of acetylcholine receptor antibodies.
Additional Tests
- Some patients with myasthenia gravis (MG), neither of these antibodies is present. These individuals are said to have seronegative (negative antibody) myasthenia.
- Electro-Diagnostics: Diagnostic tests include repetitive nerve stimulation, which repeatedly stimulates a patient’s nerves with small pulses of electricity to tire specific muscles. Muscle fibers in myasthenia gravis, as well as other neuromuscular disorders, do not respond as well to repeated electrical stimulation compared to muscles from normal individuals. Single fiber electromyography (EMG), considered the most sensitive test for myasthenia gravis, detects impaired nerve-to-muscle transmission. EMG can be very helpful in diagnosing mild cases of myasthenia gravis when other tests fail to demonstrate abnormalities.
- Diagnostic Imaging: Diagnostic imaging of the chest using computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may identify the presence of a thymoma.
- Pulmonary Function Test: Measuring breathing strength can help predict if respiration may fail and lead to a myasthenic crisis.
Because weakness is a common symptom of many other disorders, doctors often miss or delay the diagnosis of myasthenia gravis (sometimes up to two years) in patients who experience mild weakness or in those individuals whose weakness is restricted to only a few muscles.
Treatment of Myasthenia Gravis (MG)
The main goal of myasthenia gravis (MG) treatment is to manage the symptoms and control the activity of the immune system, since there is no cure for myasthenia gravis disease.
Medications
Corticosteroids and immunosuppressants are used to suppress the immune system. These medications help minimize the abnormal immune response that occurs in myasthenia gravis (MG) disease.
Additionally, doctors can use cholinesterase inhibitors, such as pyridostigmine (Mestinon), to increase communication between nerves and muscles.
Thymus gland removal
Removal of the thymus gland, which is part of the immune system, may be appropriate for many myasthenia gravis (MG) patients. After the thymus gland is removed, myasthenia gravis (MG) patients typically show less muscle weakness.
According to the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America, between ten to fifteen percent of myasthenia gravis (MG) patients will have a tumor in their thymus. Tumors, even those that are benign, are always removed because they may become cancerous.
Plasma exchange
Plasma exchange is also known as plasmapheresis. This process removes harmful antibodies from the blood, which may result in an improvement in muscle strength.
Plasmapheresis is a short-term treatment. The body continues to produce the harmful antibodies and weakness may recur. Plasma exchange is helpful before surgery or during times of extreme myasthenia gravis (MG) weakness.
Intravenous immune globulin
Intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) is blood product that comes from donors. It’s used to treat autoimmune myasthenia gravis (MG) disease. Although it’s not entirely known how IVIG works, it affects the creation and function of antibodies.
Lifestyle changes
There are some things you can do at home to help alleviate symptoms of myasthenia gravis (MG):
- First, get plenty of rest to help minimize muscle weakness.
- Second, if you’re bothered by double vision, talk to your doctor about whether you should wear an eye patch.
- Finally, avoid stress and heat exposure, as both can worsen the symptoms.
These treatments cannot cure myasthenia gravis (MG) disease. However, you’ll typically see improvements in your symptoms. Some individuals may go into remission, during which treatment is not necessary.
Biospecimens
Bay Biosciences is a global leader in providing researchers with high quality, clinical grade, fully characterized human tissue samples, bio-specimens, and human bio-fluid collections.
Moreover, human biospecimens are available including tumor tissue, serum, plasma and PBMC Samples from most other therapeutic areas.
Furthermore, Bay Biosciences maintains and manages its own biorepository, the human tissue bank (biobank) consisting of thousands of diseased samples (specimens) and likewise normal healthy donors for controls. Additionally, available in all formats and types.
In fact, our biobank procures and stores fully consented, de-identified and institutional review boards (IRB) approved human tissue samples, human biofluids such as serum samples, plasma samples from various diseases and matched controls.
Also, all our human tissue collections, human biospecimens and human biofluids are provided with detailed, samples associated patient’s clinical data.
In fact, this critical patient’s clinical data includes information relating to their past and current disease, treatment history, lifestyle choices, biomarkers, and genetic information.
Additionally, researchers find the patient’s data associated with the human biospecimens extremely valuable and use it to help identify new effective treatments (drug discovery & development) in oncology, as well as in other therapeutic areas and diseases.
Bay Biosciences banks wide variety of human tissue samples and human biological samples, including fresh frozen human biospecimens cryogenically preserved at – 80°C.
For example fresh frozen tissue samples, tumor tissue samples, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE), tissue slides, with matching human bio-fluids, whole blood and blood-derived products such as human serum, human plasma and human PBMCs.
Bay Biosciences is a global leader in collecting and providing human tissue samples according to the specified requirements and customized, tailor-made collection protocols.
Please contact us anytime to discuss your special research projects and customized human tissue sample requirements.
Types of Biospecimens
Bay Biosciences provides human tissue samples (human specimens) and human bio-fluids from diseased and normal healthy donors which includes:
- Firstly, peripheral whole-blood
- Secondly, amniotic fluid
- Thirdly, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL)
- Next, sputum
- Also, pleural effusion
- Moreover, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)
- Likewise, serum (sera)
- In addition, plasma
- Moreover, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC)
- Furthermore, saliva
- Next, buffy coat
- Accordingly, urine
- For example, Stool samples
- Also, aqueous humor
- And, vitreous humor
- Lastly, kidney stones (renal calculi)
- Finally, other bodily fluids from most diseases including cancer.
Moreover, we can also procure most human biospecimens and human biofluids, special collections and requests for human samples that are difficult to find. All our human tissue samples and human biofluids are procured through IRB-approved clinical protocols and procedures.
In addition to the standard processing protocols, Bay Biosciences can also provide human biofluids such as human plasma, human serum, and human PBMCs bio-fluid samples using custom processing protocols. you buy donor-specific collections in higher volumes and specified sample aliquots from us in multiple format and sets.
Bay Biosciences also provides human biospecimens from normal healthy donors; volunteers, for controls and clinical research, Contact us Now.
- 日本のお客様は、ベイバイオサイエンスジャパンBay Biosciences Japanまたはhttp://baybiosciences-jp.com/contact/までご連絡ください。