Читать книгу Graves' Orbitopathy - Группа авторов - Страница 48

Although it is generally accepted that all patients with Graves’ disease have subclinical evidence of GO at imaging, under the clinical point of view a discrete proportion of them does not have overt clinical signs or symptoms of GO. Studies aimed at investigating the prevalence of GO in Graves’ disease have raised rather discordant findings, presumably due to different definitions of GO, absence of standardized eye assessment methods, time-related or geographical variations of GO frequency, and selection biases. Taking these limitations into account, the proportion of hyperthyroid Graves’ disease patients having GO has been reported to range from 13 to 69% [3]. A recent meta-analysis of 12 different studies performed in various countries showed an approximately 33% GO proportion in patients with Graves’ hyperthyroidism [3]. Based on the available studies, there seems to be a progressive decrease in GO prevalence over the years [3, 6], a possible explanation of which is the decrease in smoking in Western countries, where the vast majority of studies was performed.