# Report that 10-15% of Hashi's Patients are Antibody Negative



## Zugora (Feb 14, 2010)

"Patients with Hashimoto thyroiditis have antibodies to various thyroid antigens, the most frequently detected of which include anti-thyroid peroxidase (anti-TPO), antithyroglobulin (anti-Tg), and to a lesser extent, TSH receptor-blocking antibodies. Nevertheless, a small percentage of patients with Hashimoto thyroiditis (approximately 10-15%) may be antibody negative. "

See etiology subsection in:
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/120937-overview#aw2aab6b2b2aa

This was the case with my good friend. "Normal" TSH and "normal" thyroid antibodies. It was only until they did a biopsy on a nodule that they found out she had positive antibodies and thyroid cancer.


----------



## lainey (Aug 26, 2010)

And normal people can have antibodies. They don't necessarily mean that there is a problem. Thyroid disfunction is measured by TSH and Free t4 levels.



> In the third U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of persons 12 years of age or older, high serum concentrations of thyroid antibodies were present in 14.3 percent of whites, in 10.9 percent of Mexican Americans, and in only 5.3 percent of blacks.7 The majority of patients with measurable thyroid antibody concentrations have normal thyroid function. In studies in England, 10 percent of postmenopausal women with high serum thyroid antibody concentrations had subclinical hypothyroidism and 0.5 percent had overt hypothyroidism, although euthyroid patients with high serum thyroid antibody concentrations had progression to overt hypothyroidism at a rate of 2 to 4 percent a year


http://www.medical-journals.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=86&Itemid=55


----------



## Andros (Aug 26, 2009)

Zugora said:


> "Patients with Hashimoto thyroiditis have antibodies to various thyroid antigens, the most frequently detected of which include anti-thyroid peroxidase (anti-TPO), antithyroglobulin (anti-Tg), and to a lesser extent, TSH receptor-blocking antibodies. Nevertheless, a small percentage of patients with Hashimoto thyroiditis (approximately 10-15%) may be antibody negative. "
> 
> See etiology subsection in:
> http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/120937-overview#aw2aab6b2b2aa
> ...


And this is true because TPO is not "definitive" of Hashi's; it is merely "suggestive" of Hashi's as well as a myriad of other things including cancer.

It is my contention that more than half the patients who have been told they have Hashimoto's based on the presence of TPO in fact do not have Hashi's.

Only FNA can rule in or rule out by way of the presence of Hurthle Cells indigenous to Hashimoto's. And there are Hurthle Cells indigenous to Cancer as well so we depend strongly and a good pathologist who knows their cells.

Furthermore.............................ROLF!! (I could go on!)


----------

