The Connective-Tissue Diseases and Symptoms Associated with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis

Hypothyroidism in Rheumatoid Arthritis — To Screen or Not to Screen?

“…In the literature on associations between RA and hypothyroidism, which goes back to the 1960s 7,8 , one of the first studies reported thyroiditis in up to 12% of patients with RA 9 . Major limitations of these studies were cross-sectional or observational designs and lack of "adequate" control groups.…”

Characteristics of rheumatoid arthritis patients at first presentation to a specialized rheumatology department

“…High prevalence of hypothyroidism among patients with RA has been reported by several workers. 15,16,17,18 It stands to reason because both of them are autoimmune diseases. No patient had active TB, while 2% had been treated for pulmonary TB.…”

A 50-year Revisit of the Initiation and Associations of Hashimoto’s Disease: Might Findings Conform to a Concept of Multifactorial Physiopathologic Transitions?

“…One of our early reports 18 was the first reference in a detailed review of disease associations in AITD 33 , used to cite their text statement, "The many potential problems that beset studies of disease associations were clearly described over 30 years ago 1 : ...." Space limitations do not permit a review of the numerous potential design faults in association studies 13,16,17,18 , particularly Berkson's bias 34 , which could apply to the large number of putative associations with HD 1,10,33,35 . Our early detailed clinical and pathological study of 74 autopsied cases of HD (including diffuse chronic thyroiditis) failed to show a higher overall association with additional autoimmune disorders than a carefully matched set of postmortem patients 17 .…”

“…The review 1 rekindled long-past memories, and this commentary offers a personal historical perspective on some complex research questions and challenges persisting in HD and its associated conditions. Such issues had been posed some 2 generations ago 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 (Table 1), but have not yet been adequately resolved.…”

“…Stuart and Allan, 1958 9 Demonstrated a correlation between the extent of basement membrane damage and antithyroid antibody titers. Becker, 1963 10 A large patient sample report on the connective tissue disease and symptoms associated with Hashimoto's thyroiditis.…”