Because of its practical importance, we fully expect the Warmingham hypothesis to provoke intense interest of both clinicians who treat hypothyroid patients with thyroid hormone therapy, and the patients themselves.

We refer our readers first to my introduction to Mr. Warmingham's landmark hypothesis. Next, we link to his actual paper, which characterizes the exacting intellectual precision typical of professional engineers, in this case, one who is an expert in control systems, including the pituitary-thyroid axis.

Introduction to the Warmingham-TSH-Hypothesis:

Warmingham, P.: Effect of exogenous thyroid hormone intake on the interpretation of serum TSH test results. Thyroid Science, 5(7)1-6, 2010.

The second paper we publish today will be of interest to those who treat hyperthyroidism due to thyroid gland disease. And we expect it to be of strong interest to patients who are considering undergoing such treatment.

The authors of the paper are nuclear-medicine researchers, headed by Dr. Ajit S. Shinto. They conducted their study for two reasons: to assess hyperthyroid patients' outcome a year after radioactive iodine therapy, and to identify factors associated with a good response by patients.

The researchers had a higher cure rate than patients in other studies. The higher rate may have resulted from more thyroid gland absorption of radioactive iodine, as the patients were from a region of India where iodine deficiency is common.

The researchers found no significant associations between the cure rate and several other factors: gender, the particular antithyroid-drug pretreatment, the duration of antithyroid-drug pretreatment, or the dose of radioactive iodine. This latter finding may be of particular interest to those concerned about the minimally effective dose of radioactive iodine.

Dr. Shinto and his colleagues report that the occurrence of hypothyroidism after treatment for hyperthyroidism was highest in the second trimester after the therapy. As a result, they recommend that during this time span, clinicians carefully follow patients who have undergone treatment for hyperthyroidism.

Link to introductory abstract of Dr. Shinto's study:

Shinto, A.S., Pachen, L., Sreekanth, T.K.: Fixed Dose Radioactive Iodine Therapy in Hyperthyroidism: Outcome and Factors Affecting it in a Region in South India. Thyroid Science, 5(6):CLS1-7, 2010.

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