BACKGROUND Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a powerful enhancer of vascular permeability and inflammatory response; however its significance in chronic urticaria is poorly recognised. AIM To compare free circulating levels of VEGF and its soluble receptors (sVEGFR1 and VEGFR2) in patients with different forms of chronic urticaria. METHODS The concentrations of VEGF and its recep...

OBJECTIVES To assess the incidence of hypothyroidism after hemithyroidectomy and to identify risk factors for the development of hypothyroidism. DESIGN Retrospective analysis. SETTING A tertiary care academic medical center. PATIENTS The study included 90 patients who underwent a hemithyroidectomy from 1999 to 2004. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Hypothyroidism was defined as a serum thyrotropin...

HASHIMOTO (1912) remarked on the similarity of the form of thyroiditis, described by him and now known by his name, to the lesions of Mikulicz's disease, which include a chronic inflammatory reaction in the lacrimal glands. Only recently, however, has evidence accumulated of a true association between non-infective chronic inflammatory lesions of the thyroid and lacrimal glands (Anderson, Gray,...

Bardet-Biedel syndrome (BBS) is a rare autosomal recessive, genetically heterogeneous ciliopathy. Although the disease has been described in a patient with psoriasis, individuals with BBS are not known to be at risk of developing autoimmune disorders. Our objective was to describe a 14-year-old patient with BBS who presented with Crohn disease (CD), primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), and thy...

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