The Association Between Asthma and Risk of Myasthenia Gravis: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the association between asthma and risk of myasthenia gravis (MG) using the method of systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods: Potentially eligible studies were identified from Medline and EMBASE databases from inception to July 2020 using search strategy that comprised terms for “Asthma” and “Myasthenia Gravis”. Eligible cohort study must consist of one cohort of individuals with asthma and another cohort of individuals without asthma. Then, the study must report relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) of incident MG between the groups. Eligible case–control studies must include cases with MG and controls without MG. Then, the study must explore their history of asthma. Odds ratio (OR) with 95% CIs of the association between asthma status and MG must be reported. Point estimates with standard errors were retrieved from each study and were combined together using the generic inverse variance method. Results: A total of 6,835 articles were identified. After two rounds of independent review by five investigators, two cohort studies and three case–control studies met the eligibility criteria and were included into the meta-analysis. Pooled analysis showed that asthma was significantly associated with risk of MG with the pooled risk ratio of 1.38 (95% CI 1.02–1.86). Funnel plot was symmetric, which was not suggestive of publication bias. Conclusion: The current study found a significant association between asthma and increased risk of MG.