Elevated Serum IL-17 Expression at Cessation Associated with Graves’ Disease Relapse

Table 1

Clinical features of GD patients with or without relapse.

Parameters	Relapse		value
	Yes ()	No ()
Age at diagnosis (year)	45.3 ± 11.4	40.8 ± 10.3	0.029
Gender (n, %)			0.65
Male	9 (20.0%)	17 (23.6%)
Female	36 (80.0%)	55 (76.4%)
Smokers (n, %)	7(15.6%)	10(13.9%)	0.80
Graves’ ophthalmopathy	20(44.4%)	18(25.0%)	0.029
Thyroglobulin (Tg, μg/L)	51.7 ± 35.9	46.8 ± 33.2	0.45
Thyroglobulin antibody positivity (%)	12(26.7%)	26(36.1%)	0.29
Anti-TPO (IU/L)	121.5 ± 98.7	94.5 ± 69.1	0.085
Duration of ATD therapy (months)	20.2 ± 5.2	19.5 ± 6.8	0.56
ATD drugs (n, %)			0.65
Methimazole	36 (80.0%)	60 (83.3%)
Propylthiouracil	9 (20.0%)	12 (16.7%)
Time to normalization of TSH (months)	5.8 ± 2.1	4.6 ± 2.4	0.007
Time to normalization of fT4 (months)	2.2 ± 1.2	1.6 ± 0.9	0.003
Thyroid function tests at diagnosis
fT4 (pmol/L)	31.6 ± 15.1	30.8 ± 14.7	0.72
TT3 (nmol/L)	5.2 ± 1.3	4.8 ± 1.6	0.16
TSH (mIU/L)	0.06 ± 0.05	0.06 ± 0.04	1.00
TRAb (IU/L)	7.7 ± 5.8	6.7 ± 4.8	0.31
TSAb (%)	422.1 ± 172.4	482.3 ± 201.5	0.10
Thyroid function tests at cessation
fT4 (pmol/L)	17.5 ± 2.9	16.8 ± 3.6	0.27
TT3 (nmol/L)	2.2 ± 0.5	2.3 ± 0.6	0.35
TSH (mIU/L)	2.5 ± 1.4	3.2 ± 1.5	0.013
TRAb (IU/L)	1.2 ± 0.8	0.8 ± 0.5	0.001
TSAb (%)	214.4 ± 114.8	218.5 ± 109.7	0.85

GD: Graves’ disease; ATD: antithyroid drug; Anti-TPO: antithyroid peroxidase antibody; fT4: free thyroxine; TT3: total triiodothyronine; TSH: thyrotropin-stimulating hormone; TRAb: thyrotropin receptor antibody; TSAb: thyroid stimulatory antibody. values were calculated by Student’s t-test, Mann–Whitney U test, and chi-squared test. .