OBJECTIVE To describe the clinical characteristics of patients with spontaneous hypothyroidism, the frequency of chronic autoimmune thyroiditis, and the thyroid autoantibody most often associated with this condition in a referral population in Jamaica. METHODS A retrospective study of all cases referred to the author's endocrinology practice from 1995 to 2005 with a diagnosis of spontaneous h...

The most common cause of hyperthyroidism in Australia is Graves disease, caused by a defect in immunoregulation in genetically predisposed individuals, leading to production of thyroid-stimulating antibodies. Each of the three modalities of therapy for Graves disease--thionamide drugs, subtotal or total thyroidectomy, and radioactive iodine ablation--can render the patient euthyroid, but all ha...

Background: Vitiligo is a depigmenting disorder characterized by the loss of melanocytes. Thyroid functional disorders and autoimmune thyroid diseases have been reported in association with vitiligo. This study was thus conducted to find out any association of vitiligo with thyroid dysfunction. Methodology: This study was conducted at the Dermatology Department of a teaching medical college. Th...

BACKGROUND/AIMS The natural history of thyroid function in children with Down's syndrome is relatively unknown. We hypothesized that in these patients the occurrence of thyroid dysfunction rises during development. METHODS Thyroid function was assessed yearly in 145 children with Down's syndrome, all followed from birth up to 10 years of age. Heteroskedastic binary and ordinary logistic regre...

Thyroid peroxidase (TPO) is an enzyme and autoantigen expressed in thyroid and breast tissues. Thyroid TPO undergoes a complex maturation process however, nothing is known about post-translational modifications of breast-expressed TPO. In this study, we have investigated the biochemical properties of TPO expressed in normal and cancerous human breast tissues, and the maturation process and anti...

Objective: This study aims to determine the triggering role of parvovirus B19 (PV-B19) in pathogenesis autoimmune thyroiditis adolescence.Materials and Methods: Thirty-five patients aged 10-18 years who were diagnosed with Hashimoto's last 6 months included study. As control group, 35 healthy volunteers without PV-B19 associated acute disease, no goiter physical examination, family history thyr...

BACKGROUND Children are commonly referred to a pediatric rheumatology center for the laboratory finding of an Anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) of undetermined significance. Previous studies regarding adult rheumatology patients have supported an association between ANA and anti-thyroid antibodies, with the prevalence of thyroid antibodies being significantly higher in patients referred to a rheumato...

OBJECTIVE This study was designed to determine whether a relationship exists between previous exposure to measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) by natural infection or vaccination or by new immunization with MMR vaccine, and either the presence or levels of autoantibodies against thyroid cell and pancreatic beta-cell antigens. METHODS Antibodies against MMR and autoantibodies against thyroglobuli...