Endocrine Abstracts

Aim: There are studies showing that Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) progresses more rapidly, thyroid echogenicity is lower and thyroid autoantibodies are higher titer positive in immunoglobulin G4 (IGg4) positive patients.But a small number of studies that do not support this data have also been published.We planned this study to evaluate the findings of IgG4 (+) Hashimoto’s thyroiditis cases.

Materials and methods: New diagnosis without treatment of thyroid 92 patients with HT and 60 healthy volunteers were included fort he study between October 2015 and October 2016. After 8 hours of fasting, basal thyroid function tests and serum IgG4 level were analyzed in the whole of the individual and thyroid ultrasonography was performed all of them.HT patients were divided into subgroups with IGG4 (group 1) and without IgG4 (group 2).

Findings: Mean IgG4 levels were similar between patient group and healthy volunteers.There were 22 patients in group 1 and 70 patients in group 2. Mean age values of two groups were similar.Statistically men patients were more in group 1 (P=0.009). There was no statistically significant difference was detected between two groups in terms of mean thyroid stimulant hormone (TSH), free T4, free T3, anti-TPO and anti-Tg antibodies, thyroid volume, thyroid nodule quantity and thyroid parenchyma echogenicity.

Results: There are publications in the literature that, IgG4 positive HT is more often detected in younger age and men patients, it is related lower echogenity ultrasonographically and higher titre thyroid autoantibodies. However in our study, among IgG4 positive HT patients, statistically meaning difference was not detected in terms of parameters examined, except more men numbers. We have thought that, these results arised because of the premise of working and IgG4 positive case number scarcity.