Nizar Souayah, MD, shares how he weighs the patient’s needs with treatment aggressiveness.
Transcript
This is the art of myasthenia gravis management. There are no protocols, as you know—you can’t learn this in school. It’s based on a very good relationship with and knowledge of your patient, your medical knowledge, and sharpness in your assessment.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say you have an older single mom with myasthenia. She has two children to take care of and can’t afford any incapacitation. She needs to be treated aggressively. For this patient, you can use aggressive management to avoid weakness that could interfere with daily activities and taking care of her kids.
But if you have an older woman with a history of diabetes and heart disease, the equation is very different. We’re fortunate that, in the past few years, we’ve had what’s called targeted therapy. We can adjust treatment for each patient and provide adequate treatment that knocks out part of the immune response without full immunosuppression. This gives us the opportunity to provide effective treatment with very few side effects.
