Thyroid function in mongolism

Alopecia areata, autoimmunity, and Down's syndrome.

“…Other workers (Kurland et al, 1957;Coppen and Cowie, 1960;Hayles et al, 1965;Fialkow, 1966) have confirmed this and shown mongols themselves to be particularly susceptible to thyroid disease. Recently thyroid antibodies have been shown to be unusually common in mongols and their relatives (Mellon et al, 1963;Fialkow et al, 1965;Saxena and Pryles, 1965;Burgio et al, 1966;Dallaire and Flynn, 1967;Vanhaelst et al, 1970). Similar findings occur in two other chromosomal abnormalities-namely, Klinefelter and Turner's syndromes (Sparkes and Motulsky, 1963;Williams et al, 1964).…”

Impaired <i>in vitr</i><i>o</i> Response of Circulating Lymphocytes to Phytohemagglutinin in Down’s Syndrome: Dose- and Time-Response Curves and Relation to Cellular Immunity

“…normal total y-globulin serum levels in this syndrome [3,4,5,18,23,40,63,72,82,86,88,89,92]. It has been suggested that the increased frequency of infections in patients with Down's syndrome is because most of them are institutionalized and are thus subjected to environ mental conditions involving more frequent exposures to infective agents, or that it is due to the concomitant vitamin A deficiency [32,34], Nevertheless, the environmental conditions at the institutions may not be sufficient to explain the higher frequency of infections in Down's syndrome patients, as other types of institutionalized retar dates do not show as high a frequency of infections [23,83].…”

“…High incidence of thyroid autoantibodies [1,17,55,82,96], of spontaneously occurring prccipitins of milk proteins [66], and of Australia antigen which is frequently present in patients with anicteric viral hepatitis and leukemia [3,14,90]. Pathological findings in the thymus indicat ing abnormal Hassall's corpuscles [11] which, as recently suggested, may play a role in long-term immunity [13].…”

Herpes simplex virus and Guillain-Barre polyradiculitis.

“…Other workers (Kurland et al, 1957;Coppen and Cowie, 1960;Hayles et al, 1965;Fialkow, 1966) have confirmed this and shown mongols themselves to be particularly susceptible to thyroid disease. Recently thyroid antibodies have been shown to be unusually common in mongols and their relatives (Mellon et al, 1963;Fialkow et al, 1965;Saxena and Pryles, 1965;Burgio et al, 1966;Dallaire and Flynn, 1967;Vanhaelst et al, 1970). Similar findings occur in two other chromosomal abnormalities-namely, Klinefelter and Turner's syndromes (Sparkes and Motulsky, 1963;Williams et al, 1964).…”