[Morphological variants of thyroid autoimmune diseases]

Analysis of the structural features of thyroid tissue, removed from 250 patients with Graves' disease, made it possible to define 3 morphological variants of Graves' disease differing not only by the type of pathological changes in the thyroid but also etiopathogenetically. One of the variants (parenchymatous type of the thyroid structure) may be of nonautoimmune origin; the second one is of primary autoimmune genesis (the classical variant, Basedow's disease, toxic goiter), and the third one is colloidal proliferating goiter with the autoimmune component (in approximately 50% of cases). Analysis of the structural features of thyroid tissue of 250 patients with Hashimoto's disease made it also possible to define its 3 morphological variants, differing both in a degree of expression of thyroid lymphoid infiltration and in the type of parenchymatous and stromal changes.