CLINICAL THYROIDOLOGY
Februari 2010
Patients with a primary diagnosis of autoimmune thyroid disease are
at significantly increased risk for additional autoimmune diseases
BACKGROUND
Autoimmune thyroid diseases are common, manifested most commonly as autoimmune thyroiditis (AITD) or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and Graves’ disease. The prevalence of spontaneous hypothyroidism is as high as 2% in iodine-replete areas such as the United States and Europe. In addition, autoimmune thyroid diseases are associated with a variety of other disorders such as type 1 diabetes mellitus, Addison’s disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, and pernicious anemia, and also appear as a family trait that tends to be associated with many other autoimmune disorders.
The object of this cross-sectional multicenter study was to systematically quantify the prevalence of coexisting autoimmune disorders
RESULTS
The Prevalence of Coexisting Autoimmune Diseases in Men and Women (Figures 1 and 2)
The Prevalence of Coexisting Autoimmune Diseases in the Index Cases with Graves’ disease or Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (Figures 3 to 6)
The most common autoimmune disease associated with the index cases of Graves’ disease or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis was rheumatoid arthritis (Figures 1 and 2).
Those with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis had a 10-fold higher risk for Addison’s disease (P<0.001) and a 3-fold higher risk for pernicious anemia (P = 0.004), as compared with index cases of Graves’ disease
CONCLUSION
Patients with a primary diagnosis of autoimmune thyroid disease are at significantly increased risk for additional autoimmune diseases.
The authors of the study suggest that these risks highlight the importance of screening for other autoimmune diagnoses if patients with autoimmune thyroid disease present with new or nonspecific symptoms.
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COMMENTARY
This is perhaps the largest study to quantify the risk for coexisting autoimmune diseases in more than 3000 index cases with well-characterized Graves’ disease or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. The authors point out that this study demonstrated the high relative risks for the diagnosis of several organ-specific autoimmune disorders, particularly pernicious anemia, Addison’s disease, and celiac disease. In addition, they demonstrated parental clustering of index cases of hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism
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Link:
http://www.thyroid.org/professionals/pu ... _16_19.pdf
