| Abstract: | The density of germinal centres in the thymic medulla in twenty-three cases of myasthenia gravis correlated inversely with age but did not correlate with sex, the duration of symptoms of myasthenia gravis, the presence of thymoma, or the result of tests for antibody to striated muscle and thymic epithelial cells. The number of germinal centres formed in lymphoid tissues during an immune response in man is known to decrease with increasing age and this probably applies to autoimmune reactions. The inverse correlation of thymic germinal centres and age in myasthenia gravis is thus consistent with an autoimmune reaction occurring in the thymus in all cases of myasthenia gravis. |
