ReportIncreased prevalence of chronic autoimmune (Hashimoto's) thyroiditis in children and adolescents with vitiligo
Section snippets
Methods
The study was approved by our institutional review board and informal consent was obtained.
In all, 54 children and adolescents (23 boys, 31 girls; mean age 11.4 ± 4.89 years) with vitiligo, who had visited the skin clinic at least once during the last 5 years and lived in the municipality of Athens, Greece, were recalled and re-examined. A detailed personal and family history of thyroid disorder, autoimmune disease, or both was obtained; the age at onset, duration, location, and distribution of
Results
The mean age at onset of vitiligo was 7.7 ± 3.8 years, whereas the duration of the disease before the time of study was 3.7 ± 3.6 years (0.16-15.75). Most of the patients had the vitiligo vulgaris type (30 of 54, 55.6%) followed by the focal (16 of 54, 29.6%) and segmental (8 of 54, 14.8%) types.
Two patients had alopecia areata and celiac disease, respectively, whereas 28 patients had at least one family member, up to second degree, with thyroid disorder, autoimmune disease, or both, including
Discussion
Chronic autoimmune (Hashimoto's) thyroiditis is the most common cause of hypothyroidism in iodine-replete areas of the world. It is, by strict criteria, a histologic diagnosis, characterized by diffuse lymphocytic infiltration with occasional germinal centers, thyroid follicles of reduced size containing sparse colloid, and fibrosis.15 However, in clinical practice, the diagnosis of the disease is based on positive serum thyroid autoantibodies and the characteristic echographic pattern of
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Conflicts of interest: None identified.