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Changes in Thyroid-Stimulating Antibody Activity in Graves' Disease Treated with Antithyroid Drug and Its Relationship to Relapse: A Prospective Study^*

CHONG SHING TENG and ROSE T. T. YEUNG

Department of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong

Thyroid-stimulating antibodies (TSAb) were found in 51 patients (83.6%) with untreated Graves' disease. The mean TSAb index reached the normal level after 6 months of antithyroid drug therapy. In 9 patients (14.8%), TSAb remained persistently positive during and after antithyroid drug therapy, and relapse occurred in all. In 42 patients (68.8%), TSAb indices gradually returned to the normal range after drug treatment was started; in 38% of these, remission was maintained after treatment was stopped, in another 40.5%, relapse occurred when they were TSAb-positive, and the remaining 21.5% relapsed despite return of TSAb indices to the normal range. A positive TSAb index at the end of drug treatment was a useful indicator in predicting subsequent relapse because, with 1 exception, all patients who were still TSAb positive at drug withdrawal relapsed subsequently.

^* This work was presented in part at the 61^st Annual Meeting of The Endocrine Society, Anaheim, CA, June 1979. It was supported by the University of Hong Kong Higher Degrees and Research Grants Committee.

To whom requests for reprints should be addressed.

Received April 17, 1979.

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