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Abstract Multiple sclerosis (MS) occurs with immune-mediated mechanisms and its pathogenesis is not known accurately. There have been reports of MS coexistence with other autoimmune diseases, and the autoimmune pathogenesis of MS is well accepted. In recent years there have been some case reports of MS associated with autoimmune thyroid diseases as Hashimoto thyroiditis. Hashimoto thyroiditis is one of the most frequent causes of primary hypothyroidism. Histopathologic thyroid findings of Hashimoto disease show widespread lymphocyte infiltration. In the early period of the disease, hyperthyroidism, and in the later period، hypothyroidism can be more prominent. Twenty percent of patients with Hashimoto disease are hypothyroid upon presentation. Because the incidence of the association of MS and Hashimoto thyroiditis is rare, we assessed the association of Hashimoto thyroiditis and MS among the patients being followed in our outpatient MS clinic. The aim of this study is to evaluate thyroid function and autoimmunity in patients with multiple sclerosis before and after 6 months of starting multiple sclerosis treatment with IFN-β. It was conducted on a hundred (100) subjects; their ages ranges from 20 to 50 yrs recruited from the inpatient and outpatient clinic of Internal Medicine department, Neurology Unit of Ain Shams University Hospitals during the period from February 2016 to August 2017. Informed consents were obtained from all subjects included in the study. We classified our subjects into two groups: group I: included 50 patients newly diagnosed as multiple sclerosis according to Macdonald’s criteria 2010 before and after 6 months of multiple sclerosis medical treatment with IFN-β. group II: Included 50 normal subjects. They were 30 females and 20 males. All participants were subjected to full medical history taking, Thorough clinical examination (emphasizing on thyroid examination and neurological examination including Expanded disability status scale (EDSS) scoring), Laboratory investigations including (serum Free T4, Free T3 , TSH ,Anti TPO antibodies and Antithyrogobulin antibodies ) and radiological studies (MRI brain and Neck ultrasonography). Subjects known to have previous history of any thyroid diseases (autoimmune thyroid diseases, thyroid tumors, thyroiditis), Family history of thyroid diseases, History of previous thyroid operation or radioactive iodine, History of previuos prolonged exposure to radiations, On drugs altering thyroid function, History of other autoimmune disorder , Other neurological concomitant disease, History of interferon therapy or with EDSS > 6.5 were excluded from our study. Our results revealed the following: On comparing control group and drug naïve MS patients group before treatment with IFN β, there was a statistical significant difference between the control group and the drug naive MS patients group as regards anti TG level being higher in patients before treatment than in control group with (pvalue= 0.001).While there was no statistical significant difference between the control group and the drug naïve patients group as regards anti TPO level (p- value > 0.05), in addition , This study showed normal thyroid profile including TSH, FT3 and FT4 in both groups. On comparing drug naïve patients group before treatment and after their treatment with IFN β, there was a statistical significant difference between the drug naïve patients group and their follow up after treatment regarding anti TPO and antiTG levels being higher after treatment with interferon beta than before treatment (P-value ˂0.05) but no statistical significant difference regarding thyroid profile (FT3, FT4, TSH) as well as neck U/S findings between MS patients before treatment with interferon beta and after 6 months of starting IFN β with (p- value > 0.05). On correlating between anti TG, TPO and other parameters in drug naïve patients group before and then after treatment with interferon beta, there was a highly significant positive correlation between anti TPO level and anti TG level in drug naïve patients before and after treatment with interferon beta (r=0.648) and (r=0.725) respectively but there was no statistical significant correlation between each of them and other parameters including age, free T4, FT3, TSH (r=-0.081), EDSS (r=-0.205) and duration (r=-0.134) before and after treatment with interferon beta with (p-value >0.05). Multiple logestic regression analysis showed that anti TPO level independently correlates with the level of FT3 after 6 months of treatment with interferon beta. |