Am J Psychiatry 1985; 142:1318-1321
Copyright © 1985 by American Psychiatric Association
Autoimmune thyroiditis in manic-depressive patients treated with lithium
JR Calabrese, AD Gulledge, K Hahn, R Skwerer, M Kotz, OP Schumacher, MK Gupta, N Krupp and PW Gold
To explore whether lithium-induced hypothyroidism is related to an
exacerbation of underlying autoimmune processes such as thyroiditis, the
authors comprehensively assessed thyroid function in 16 manic- depressive
patients. Each of the three patients who showed detectable titers of
thyroid microsomal antibodies before treatment manifested a marked increase
in antibody titer from 4 to 12 months after lithium treatment was begun.
Thus, lithium-induced thyroid dysfunction may not only involve direct
effects on the thyroid itself but also involve exacerbation of an
underlying indolent autoimmune thyroiditis, possibly by causing shifts in T
lymphocyte subpopulations.
