High prevalence of serum antibodies to hepatitis C virus in patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis

Given the reports of thyroid dysfunction and various autoimmune disorders such as Sjogren's syndrome in patients infected with hepatitis C virus,1, 2 we hypothesised a link between autoimmune thyroid disease, mainly Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and such infection. We looked for antibodies to hepatitis C virus in the serum of patients with thyroid disease. We studied stored serum samples from 200 patients (190 women) with thyroid disease (simple goitre (n=50), Graves' disease (n=50), and Hashimoto's thyroiditis (n=50) randomly selected from all patients seen at five centres between 1987 and 1992. Thyroid function was assessed by standard radioimmunoassays for serum thyroxine, triiodothyronine, and thyroid stimulating hormone. Receptor antibodies for thyroid stimulating hormone were detected with radioreceptor assay (Trak-asay, Henning Laboratories, Berlin). Serum antibodies to …