Excessive Daytime Sleepiness in Patients with Myasthenia Gravis

Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) has not been investigated using objective tests in myasthenia gravis (MG). We investigated whether objective measurements of somnolence better detected abnormalities compared with sleepiness questionnaires in MG, and determine if MG patients have EDS. Eight patients with mild-to-moderate MG were recruited. Patients completed maintenance of wakefulness, overnight polysomnography, multiple sleep latency tests, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and fatigue questionnaires. Seven patients demonstrated EDS on objective testing, while Epworth scores were abnormal in two, and the measures showed poor correlation. Our findings highlight that the ESS may be inadequate to diagnose EDS and lead to under-reporting of daytime somnolence in patients with MG.