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HYPERTHYROIDISM IN GESTATIONAL TROPHOBLASTIC NEOPLASIA
Author(s) -
NORMAN R. J.,
GREENTHOMPSON R. W.,
JIALAL I.,
SOUTTER W. P.,
PILLAY N. L.,
JOUBERT S. M.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
clinical endocrinology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 147
eISSN - 1365-2265
pISSN - 0300-0664
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2265.1981.tb00680.x
Subject(s) - medicine , choriocarcinoma , endocrinology , complication , gestation , gestational age , gestational trophoblastic neoplasia , gestational trophoblastic disease , trophoblastic neoplasm , gastroenterology , pregnancy , biology , genetics
SUMMARY The thyroid status of twenty‐seven African patients with gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) was studied. Fifteen patients were found to be biochemically hyperthyroid (eight patients with choriocarcinoma; seven with hydatidiform mole). Of these fifteen patients, nine were clinically thyrotoxic. The most serious complication of thyrotoxicosis was life‐threatening acute pulmonary oedema with associated cardiac failure. It was found that when serum levels of the human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) reached a level of about 0·1 ± 10 6 iu/l, thirteen of sixteen patients were biochemically hyper‐thyroid; at serum levels of 0·3 ± 10 6 iu/l of hCG most patients were clinically thyrotoxic. A feature of hyperthyroidism associated with GTN is that whereas T4 is invariably raised the T3:T4 ratio tends to be low (0·015 ± 005); rT3:T3 ratios were high in this group. TSH levels were not increased.