[The clinical picture and diagnosis of the pharyngofacial form of myasthenia].

In the clinic, 564 patients with the different forms of myasthenia were operated on. A pharyngo-facial form of myasthenia was revealed in 65 (11.5%) of them. There are the following clinical peculiarities of a pharyngo-facial form of myasthenia: involvement of the pharyngeal and facial muscles, impaired phonation, jerky speech, sensation of the tongue heaviness. The direction of process generalization is commonly from the centre towards periphery, towards the skeletal muscles. Involvement of the muscles of the soft palate, epiglottis causes saliva and pharyngeal secret flowing into the bronchi which leads to asphyxia.