Studies of autoimmunity in Graves' disease before and after treatment with carbimazole

The study was carried out on 31 patients with Graves' disease. The humoral autoimmunity was assessed by: quantitative determination of serum immunoglobulins and thyroglobulin autoantibodies (Tgl-AAbs) estimation. The cellular immunity was assessed by counting total T cells and subsets (T1 and T2) in peripheral blood (rosetting techniques). 12 out of 31 cases were restudied after 3 to 6 months of treatment with carbimazole. The obtained data were compared with those of a lot of normal subjects. The thyrotoxic patients presented high values of serum immunoglobulins G and M. After treatment, these values did not significantly change. The percentage of T2 cells was significantly decreased in thyrotoxicosis and decreased again after treatment. The percentage of T1 cells unchanged initially, increases significantly after treatment.