Medicine > Endocrinology > Graves-Basedow disease
Table of contents |
2 Signs and symptoms 3 Historical background 4 Bibliography |
Graves-Basedow disease is a disorder characterized by a triad of
hyperthyroidism, goitre, and exophthalmos (bulging eyeballs).
The severe form of exophthalmos occurs only in a minority of patients with the disorder, and is also known as infiltrative opthalmopathy, Graves' opthalmopathy, or Thyroid Eye Disease (TED).
Definition
Etiology unknown, it may be related to a malfunction of the immune system.
Female dominance, ratio 4: 1; onset is commonly in the third to fifth decades of life. Signs and symptoms
The symptoms include cardiac arrhythmias, increased pulse rate, weight loss
in the presence of increased appetite, intolerance to heat, elevated basal
metabolism rate, profuse sweating, apprehension, weakness, elevated
protein-bound iodine level, tremor, diarrhoea, headache, vomiting, eyelid retraction, and stare.