Endocrine Abstracts

Graves’ hyperthyroidism (GH) and Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism (HH) are the opposite ends of the clinical expression of autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITD). AITD are multifactorial ‘complex’ diseases in which immune responses against thyroid antigens develop in genetic susceptible subjects, provoked by environmental factors. Susceptibility genes include immunoregulatory genes (HLA, CTLA-4, PTPN22, CD4 and FCRL3) and thyroid-specific genes (TSHR and Tg). Environ...

Management of Graves’ ophthalmopathy (GO) requires knowledge of smoking behaviour, thyroid function and antibodies, and activity and severity of the ophthalmopathy.Smokers should be strongly adviced to stop smoking because outcome of Graves’ disease is less favourable in smokers compared to nonsmokers.High serum concentrations of TSH receptor antibodies (TBII) are associated with a more severe and protracted course of GO....

W Wiersinga, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands AbstractWilmar M Wiersinga obtained his MD in Amsterdam in 1969 and his Board Certification in Internal Medicine in 1976. He obtained his PhD cum laude in 1979 at the University of Amsterdam on the thesis ‘The peripheral conversion of T4 into T3 and reverse T3’. Thereafter he spent two years as a research fellow at the UCLA with professors David...

Prevention of autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) might become feasible in the future.Preventive intervention requires accurate prediction. AITD frequently runs in families, and twin studies have shown that genes contribute to a large extent to the risk of Graves' hyperthyroidism (GH) and Hashimoto's hypothyroidism (HH). However, CTLA-4 and HLA genes confer only a small risk, and the nature of the polygenetic background remains largely unknown. The impact of environmental factor...

Context: Vitamin D deficiency has been identified as a risk factor for a number of autoimmune diseases including type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis.Objective: We hypothesized that low levels of vitamin D are related to the early stages of autoimmune thyroid disease.Design: Two case-control studies were performed. Study A: cases were subjects from the Amsterdam AITD cohort (euthyroid women who had 1st or 2nd degree relatives wit...

Objective: To evaluate prospectively the relationship between Yersinia Enterocolitica (YE) infection and the development of overt autoimmune hypo- or hyperthyroidism (study A) and the de novo occurrence of thyroid antibodies (study B).Subjects and methods: Prospective cohort study of 790 euthyroid women who were 1st or 2nd degree relatives of AITD patients. Follow-up was 5 years, with annual assessments.Study A. Nested case&...

Genetic variants consistently associated with the development of Graves’ disease (GD) have, to date, been general autoimmunity loci including those within the HLA region, the CTLA-4 gene and most recently the PTPN22 gene encoding lymphoid tyrosine phosphatase (LYP). The thyrotophin receptor gene (TSHR) has recently however, been identified as the first Graves’ disease specific susceptibility locus. To further refine association with disease and exclude populat...