Clinical and Immunological Aspects in Hashimoto's Thyroiditis

We propose to establish the relationship between the clinical, functional and immunological parameters in a cohort of women with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. The study included 68 patients between 19 and 70 who were hospitalized for two years in the Endocrinology Clinic of the Hospital in Timisoara. The thyroidal dimensions and the aspects of the thyroidal stroma were shown by echography examinations. The functional parameters like the serum TSH and free T4 concentrations were determined by chemiluminescent methods. The immunological investigations (antithyroglobulin and antiperoxidase antibodies) were performed by the ELISA method. Comparisons were performed by the t test and the Pearson correlation analysis. The correlation between the aspects of thyroidal stroma and thyroid function revealed hypothyroidism in most cases with moderate (++) or severe (+++) echogenity. Another researched aspect was that of correlation of the serum levels of TSH with the thyroidal dimension. The following correlations were obtained: r= - 0.14 in patients with clinical hypothyroidism and r= - 0.3055 in those with subclinical hypothyroidism. The Pearson coefficients for the level of TSH in um and those of the antiperoxidase antibodies, according to clinical and functional categories, revealed the following results: r= - 0.1580 in patients with clinical hypothyroidism and r= - 0.1961 in those with subclinical hypothyroidism. Patients with clinical hypothroidism have significant higher serum level of TSH as compared with those of the patients with subclinical hypothyroidism (p=0.0001). We established a relation between the severe hypoechogenity and hypothyroidism status in patients with positive serum antibodies (r= 0.5695).