Morphological features of the thyroid follicles and intrathyroid lymphocyte composition in Graves' disease

The accumulation of T-lymphocytes in the parenchyma of the thyroid gland in hyperthyroidism of autoimmune genesis is limited, which may indicate the primary role of T-lymphocytes in the development of Graves' disease. The mechanisms of invasive activity of lymphocytes in the parenchyma of the thyroid gland and its morphological rearrangement in Graves' disease are unknown. The aim of the investigation was to study the morphological characteristics of thyroid follicle thyrocytes and the phenotypic composition of intrathyroid lymphocytes in Graves' disease. In the study used ultrasound, histological, micro-morphometric, immunological and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The material for the study was surgical biopsy specimens of the thyroid gland obtained in patients with epifascial thyroidectomy after attaining drug-induced euthyroidism. The study included 58 women with Graves' disease, mean age 40.5±13.2 years, including 18 (31.11%) with a newly verified diagnosis and 40 (68.96%) with a relapse of the disease. The results of the studies have shown that the outcome of tissue-specific autoimmune inflammation and long-term thyreostatic therapy in patients with Graves' disease is the rearrangement of the thyroid epithelium with histological signs of chronic autoimmune thyroiditis, especially pronounced in case of relapse of the disease. In the group of patients with relapse of Graves' disease, the percentage of T-lymphocytes with the CD3+CD4+CD127LowCD25High phenotype and B1 memory cells (p function show_eabstract() { $('#eabstract1').hide(); $('#eabstract2').show(); $('#eabstract_expand').hide(); }