Long-term outcomes of Graves’ disease in children and adolescents receiving antithyroid drugs

Abstract

Long-term outcomes of Graves' disease in children and adolescents receiving antithyroid drugsRunning title: Long-term outcomes of Graves' disease in children

Commentary on “Remission in pediatric Graves’ disease treated with antithyroid drug and the risk factors associated with relapse”

“…6) There is also a report of an association between the time to TSH binding inhibitory immunoglobulin normalization after treatment and GD remission. 7) In this study, 8) the authors studied 81 Chinese children treated with ATD and reported that 17.8% experienced remission and 57.4% experienced relapse after discontinuation of ATD. In addition, although the remission rate through ATD treatment was low in Asian children with GD, the longer was the ATD treatment period, the higher was the remission probability.…”

“…Factors related to remission differ from study to study, but the remission rate is low in males [ 4 ], younger age at diagnosis, non-Caucasian ethnicity, higher TSH receptor antibody at diagnosis [ 5 ], and larger goiter size [ 6 ]. There is also a report of an association between the time to TSH binding inhibitory immunoglobulin normalization after treatment and GD remission [ 7 ].…”

Commentary on "Long-term outcomes of Graves’ disease in children and adolescents receiving antithyroid drugs"

“…This article [ 1 ] investigates long-term progression of Graves' disease (GD) patients who were followed up for >5 years. GD is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism in children, accounting for about 95% of cases in Korea [ 2 ].…”

“…Antithyroid drugs (ATDs) are convenient and prevent permanent hypothyroidism and are primarily used as an initial treatment for children [ 3 ]. However, the rate of GD remission with ATD treatment alone is low, and there are no clinical guidelines on the timing of ATD treatment cessation in children and adolescents [ 1 ]. Additionally, there are few studies about the efficacy and disease progression in children and adolescents on long-term ATD therapy [ 1 , 4 ].…”

“…Factors associated with remission include higher body mass index standard deviation score, smaller goiter size, lower initial T3 level, and older age [ 5 ]. It also has been proposed that higher antimicrosomal antibody level, higher thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) level, and lower antithyroglobulin antibody level are related to remission [ 5 ], although any one of these factors alone is insufficient to predict remission of hyperthyroidism [ 1 , 4 ].…”