Our two new
publications are ones we believe will interest a wide range of
Thyroid Science subscribers. The first paper is by Peter Warmingham in the
United Kingdom.
In his paper, Mr. Warmingham
presents a hypothesis. In my
experience, the word "hypothesis" sets off in many people's minds a
reflex thought. That thought is along the line of, "Oh no; more armchair speculation!"
I quickly caution against this reaction, however, to what we have
come to call the "Warmingham TSH
Hypothesis." I believe that most readers of Thyroid Science
will agree, after earnestly considering the content of Peter
Warmingham's hypothesis, that he has made an intellectual
contribution of profound practical importance.
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.
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.