Word: myasthenia
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Jake Green, 75, of Winchester, Ky., learned in 1987 that he had myasthenia gravis, a rare degenerative disease that attacks the nerves leading to muscles. Since then, the cost of a month's supply of Mestinon, the drug produced by Switzerland's Hoffman-LaRoche that helps control his disorder, has jumped from $65 to $136. In testimony before Congress last November, Green told the Senate Special Committee on Aging, "I fear the day when I will not be able to afford to purchase the medicine which is keeping me alive...
Another autoimmune disease, myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disorder that afflicts 15,000 Americans, is caused by antibodies that attack vital links in the nervous system, and leads to gradual loss of muscular control. Initial studies suggest that small doses of cyclosporine may be effective in blunting the symptoms of the disease. Some researchers, however, are searching for a more selective remedy that involves mass-producing antibodies that are specific to one antigen. These so-called monoclonal antibodies are designed to immobilize only those B cells that produce the antibodies responsible for the disease...
...more devastating errors of the immune system involves its failure to distinguish between self and nonself, resulting in so-called autoimmune diseases, which can be crippling and sometimes fatal. Dozens of disorders that once mystified doctors are now thought to be autoimmune. Among them: Type 1 diabetes, myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. In these and other autoimmune diseases, the immune system mounts a selective and ferocious assault against parts of the body, destroying cells or cell components that it mistakenly identifies as alien...
Neurologists Alan Pestronk and Daniel Drachman stumbled on the intriguing discovery while experimenting with the drug frentizole as a possible treatment for myasthenia gravis, a muscle-weakening disease in which antibodies damage the microscopic junctions where nerves and muscles meet. Because frentizole comes in powder form, the scientists first dissolved it in DMSO, a powerful solvent. Then they injected one group of laboratory rats with the frentizole solution and another group with plain DMSO to serve as a control. To their surprise, they found after a week that both groups of rats had significantly lower levels of the destructive antibodies...
...blood, or any of the foreign material that may be circulating in it, doctors have been turning to a special blood-separation technique. Used by blood banks for at least a decade and more recently as an experimental therapy for other immune-system disorders like lupus erythematosis, myasthenia gravis and polymyositis, it is somewhat similar to hemodialysis for kidney patients. For three or so hours, the blood is slowly tapped from the body, shunted into a centrifuge, spun and separated into its constituents by weight: heavy red cells sink to the bottom, white cells settle in the middle, platelets...