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Histological findings of the thymuses extirpated in 15 cases of Hashi moto's disease and 27 cases of focal chronic lymphoid thyroiditis were described.

The importance of genetic factor became cleared by investigations of HLA antigens in Japanese with autoimmune disease. The HLA antigens of the intrathymic and peripheral lymphocytes in autoimmune disease in Japa nese were studied. The HLA antigens in the peripheral blood were evaluated in 20 cases of myasthenia gravis, 35 cases of ulcerative colitis and 20 cases of Behcet's disease. Of these the HLA antigens in the intrathymic lymphocytes were also studied in 12 cases of myasthenia gravis (4 with thymoma & 8 with thymic hyperplasia) and 3 cases of ulcerative colitis with thymic hyperplasia. Four cases of congenital heart abnormality and 3 cases of fetus were used as control. The NIH Tissue Tvnina Method was used.

Since the thymus is thought to play an important role in the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis, thymus abnormalities were studied on 18 cases of ulcerative colitis by using pneumomediastinography and histopathological examination. We have compared the thymic abnormality of ulcerative colitis with that of 104 cases of variety of autoimmune diseases. The denser and larger thymic shadow was seen in ulcerative colitis and this finding was same as in other autoimmune diseases. But the thymic size in ulcerative colitis was the largest in all examined autoimmune diseases. The incidence of thymic lymphoid follicle formation in ulcerative colitis was significantly higher than that of accidental death and this high incidence of lymphoid follicle formation is similar to other autoimmune diseases. We suggested that ulcerative colitis might be caused by the abnormal thymus dependent system.

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