Hashimoto’s disease

Many young people suffer from autoimmune thyroiditis. It can remain undetected for years or alternatively, trigger a quick attack that destroys the thyroid.

Autoimmune thyroiditis is the most common endocrine disease in children. It affects females in four out of five cases and occurs primarily in puberty. In the initial stages almost it never produces symptoms and, in some cases, causes no consequences even after many years. In other cases, it can cause a slowdown of thyroid function (hypothyroidism) for which a therapy is required.

Hashimoto's thyroiditis is a chronic inflammation of the thyroid due to a malfunction of the immune system which, for unknown reasons, attacks the thyroid and causes the death of cells that produce these hormones. 

The action of the immune system attack can result, at the beginning, an increase of the secretion of hormones, causing a hyperthyroidism that precedes the opposite situation (hypothyroidism). 

The diagnosis requires the determination in the blood is of thyroid hormones, the anti-thyroid specific antibodies; an ultrasound can demonstrate characteristic alterations. "Hashimoto's thyroiditis is part of a category of autoimmune diseases (type 1 diabetes, psoriasis, alopecia, celiac disease, to name the most common). It is therefore advisable to check and at regular intervals, the presence of these diseases in the person who developed thyroiditis in their first-degree relatives (siblings and parents), "notes Professor Giuseppe Chiumello founder and director of the Pediatric Unit of San Raffaele Hospital.