%0 Journal Article
%T The natural history of interferon-¦Á induced thyroiditis in chronic hepatitis c patients: a long term study
%A Huy A Tran
%A Tracey L Jones
%A Elizabeth A Ianna
%A Glenn EM Reeves
%J Thyroid Research
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1756-6614-4-2
%X A cohort of 18 hepatitis C patients (mean age 45 ¡À 8 years (standard deviation)) who developed exclusively thyroiditis in this setting was followed every 12 months after the completion of therapy for 36 months. Investigations included thyrotropin, free tetra-iodothyronine, free tri-iodothyronine levels and thyroid autoantibodies.None of the patients developed any long term thyroid disease. Two patients had a prolonged hypothyroid phase of the thyroiditis early after the completion of treatment but recovered fully. The remaining 16 patients remained euthyroid. Similarly, thyroid autoantibodies all declined and returned to reference range.The long term natural history in this small series of interferon induced thyroiditis was benign. If a larger series confirms a similar outcome then there is no long term residual effect on thyroid function and follow-up testing would not be warranted.Hepatitis C remains one of the major causes of chronic liver infection and cirrhosis worldwide. The most effective and established treatment available for this condition is the combination ribavirin and pegylated interferon-¦Á (IFN-¦Á). A major and common adverse effect of this treatment is the development of thyroid disease during therapy. A large spectrum of autoimmune thyroid disease (TD) has been described to occur ranging from Graves' disease to thyroiditis to frank primary hypothyroidism [1-3]. As the number of patients undertaking treatment is expected to rise, a proportion of these patients will progress to develop thyroid disease. It is therefore important to understand and fully clarify the natural progression of the disease. This forms a critical part of the long term management and counselling for these patients. It has been reported that ~50% of these patients recover from this complication [4,5]. Furthermore, other reports are retrospective and follow patients in an ad hoc fashion with very variable and unstandardised duration. In addition, some of the studied groups included
%U http://www.thyroidresearchjournal.com/content/4/1/2