Unilateral Graves' Disease: The Lesser Known

Here, we present a retrospective study conducted from 2009 to 2018, which showed the presence of unilateral uptake of radioactive tracer on ^99mTc thyroid scintigraphy scan in 15 patients with Graves' disease.

All these patients had either clinical features of Graves' disease or elevated thyroid hormone levels along with ultrasonographic features, showing either normal thyroid gland or diffuse thyroiditis. The scintigraphic features revealed increased uptake in one lobe of the thyroid gland with the other lobe being normal.

Of the 15 patients, 13 were females and two were males. The mean age of the patients was 47 years with standard deviation of 3.4 years (range 26-70 years). Eight of the 15 patients had increased uptake on the right lobe and seven had increased uptake in the left lobe.

This study shows that there exists an entity called unilateral Graves' disease which should be further evaluated.