Bibliometric analysis of the scientific production as regards statin use for ophthalmological symptoms of myasthenia gravis.

Introduction: The first symptoms of myasthenia gravis (MG) usually involve weakness of the ocular muscles, making it relevant that ophthalmologists have updated information on studies as regards its relationship with the consumption of drugs, such as statins.

Materials And Methods: A bibliometric analysis was performed using the Scopus database and by a search strategy in the selection of documents containing descriptors related to statins in the «Title» («TI») field and the descriptors «ophthalm *', «myast *', «visual *' in other fields of the document (period 1986-2015).

Results: The results showed that, while the number of scientific publications on ocular effects of statins has grown lineally (n=838; y=2.267x-4507.1; r=0.7221; time of duplication: 4.66 years, and rate of annual growth: 50.06%), the specific publications about MG have experienced an exponential growth (n=38; y=2E-262e; r=0.3892; time of duplication: 2.95 years, and rate of annual growth: 46.25%) without reaching the saturation postulated in Price theory of the expansion of the scientific literature. The majority of publications relating to MG are reports of cases linked to a worsening of the MG symptoms, and simvastatin and atorvastatin are the agents mentioned in most of the publications.

Conclusions: These results should enable ophthalmologists to expand their knowledge concerning the evolution of studies on statins and MG, pointing out the relevance of such causal relationships.