Graves’ disease
Hyperthyroidism (the presence of too much thyroid hormone),
Ophthalmopathy specifically involving exophthalmos (protrusion of the eyeballs),
Dermopathy with skin lesions.
Take the Ankylosing Spondylitis Quiz
Myths and Facts About Back Pain
The ophthalmopathy can cause sensitivity to light and a feeling of “sand in the eyes.” With further protrusion of the eyes, double vision and vision loss may occur. The ophthalmopathy tends to worsen with smoking. The dermopathy of Graves’ disease is a rare, painless, reddish lumpy skin rash that of Graves’ disease is an autoimmune process. It is caused by thyroid-stimulating antibodies which bind to and activate the thyrotropin receptor on thyroid cells.
Graves’ disease can run in families. The rate of concordance for Graves’ disease is about 20% among monozygotic (identical) twins, and the rate is much lower among dizygotic (nonidentical) twins, indicating that genes make only a moderate contribution to the susceptibility to Graves’ disease. No single gene is known to cause the disease or to be necessary for its development. There are well-established associations with certain HLA types. Linkage analysis has identified gene loci on chromosomes 14q31, 20q11.2, and Xq21 that are associated with susceptibility to Graves’ disease.
Factors that can trigger the onset of Graves’ disease include stress, smoking, radiation to the neck, medications (such as interleukin-2 and interferon-alpha), and infectious organisms such as viruses.
The diagnosis of Graves’ disease is made by a characteristic thyroid scan (showing diffusely increase uptake), the characteristic triad of ophthalmopathy, dermopathy, and hyperthyroidism, or blood testing for TSI (thyroid stimulating immunoglobulin) the level of which is abnormally high.
Current treatments for the hyperthyroidism of Graves’ disease consist of antithyroid drugs, radioactive iodine, and surgery. There is regional variation in which of these measures tends to be used — for example, radioactive iodine is favored in North America and antithyroid drugs nearly everywhere else. The surgery, subtotal thyroidectomy, is designed to remove the majority of the overactive thyroid gland.
The disease is named for Robert Graves’ who in 1835 first identified the association of goiter, palpitations, and exophthalmos. Graves’ disease is also commonly known as diffuse toxic goiter.
Other spellings include Grave’s disease and Graves disease.
Read Also:
- Gray
Milligray. Gray is, of course, also a hue between black and white.
- Gray baby syndrome
A syndrome due to toxicity of the antibiotic chloramphenicol in the newborn, especially the premature newborn, because of lack the necessary liver enzymes to metabolize this drug. Chloramphenicol accumulates in the baby, causing hypotension (low blood pressure), cyanosis (blue coloring of lips, nail beds, and skin from lack of oxygen in the blood), and often […]
- Gray matter
The cortex of the brain, which contains nerve cell bodies. The gray matter is so named because it is darker than the white matter, the part of the brain that contains myelinated nerve fibers.
- Gray's Anatomy
A book entitled Anatomy Descriptive and Surgical by Henry Gray appeared in 1858. It is still in print today and be perhaps the best known of all medical books. The English anatomist Henry Gray was born in 1825 or 1827. He studied the development of the endocrine glands and spleen and in 1853 was appointed […]
- Great Plague
“Ther cam a privee theef men clepeth Deeth, / That in this contree al the peple sleeth, / And with his spere he smoot his herte atwo, / And wente his wey withouten wordes mo. / He hath a thousand slayn this pestilence.” “La Peste” (The Plague), a novel by the Nobel Prize-winning 20th- century […]