Influence of Methylprednisolone Pulse Therapy on Liver Function in Patients with Graves’ Orbitopathy

Table 1

Group characteristics.

	Moderate-to-severe GO	DON	value
Number of patients	49	19
Etiology of Graves’ ophthalmopathy
Graves’ disease	48	19	0.5545
Hashimoto thyroiditis	1	0	0.7246
Sex
Females	34	12	0.5011
Males	15	7	0.4610
Age (years)	52.4 ± 11.7	63.6 ± 11.3	0.0004
Current smokers	25	8	0.4439
Past smokers	37	15	0.5364
Nonsmokers	12	4	0.5413
BMI (kg/m^2)	26.2 ± 4.4	25.6 ± 4.6	0.0844
Median CAS	4	3	0.7350
^131I radiotherapy	10	5	0.4480
Thyroidectomy	5	2	0.6375
Comorbidity
Liver steatosis	13	5	0.6207
Statins	11	7	0.1828
Mean fT4 (pmol/L)	16.44	19.79	0.2031
Mean aTPO (U/mL)	211	147	0.1044
Mean aTG (U/mL)	270	164	0.3672
Mean TBII (IU/L)	11	13	0.6657
Mean AST (IU/L)	21	23	0.1585
Mean ALT (IU/L)	25	26	0.3457
Mean total bilirubin (μmol/l)	11.12	11.97	0.5583

GO—Graves’ orbitopathy; DON—dysthyroid optic neuropathy; BMI—body mass index; CAS—clinical activity score; TSH—thyroid-stimulating hormone (normal range: 0.27–4.2 IU/mL); fT3—free triiodothyronine (normal range: 3.1–6.8 pmol/L); fT4—free thyroxine (normal range: 12.0–22.0 pmol/L); aTPO—anti-thyroid peroxidase (normal range < 34 U/mL); aTG—thyroglobulin antibodies (normal range < 115 U/mL); TBII—thyroid-binding inhibitory immunoglobulin (normal range < 1.75 U/mL); AST—aspartate aminotransferase (normal range: 5–40 IU/L); ALT—alanine aminotransferase (normal range: 7–56 IU/L); total bilirubin (normal range: 3.42–20.52 μmol/L).