Antithyroid drugs plus roentgen irradiation in the treatment of hyperthyroidism.

Abstract

ANTITHYROID drugs are now well established in the medical treatment of hyperthyroidism. Used in long-term treatment they give a fairly high proportion of apparent permanent remissions, by most authors calculated to be from 50 to 75 per cent. With the newer drugs of this type, complications are relatively few. In fact Doniach (1) treated 120 patients with a new drug of the methimazole group (Neo-Mercazole) without any complications. The effect of roentgen irradiation in hyperthyroidism is widely disputed. Some authors are enthusiastic, whereas others find this treatment valueless. Pfahler (2) reports satisfactory results in 89 per cent of his patients; after only one month of such treatment he found some improvement, and after two months “very definite” improvement. Aagaard (3) records that 78 per cent of his patients had a remission. Rose (4), from his experience over a period of twenty years with 800 patients, states that satisfactory results were obtained in 85 per cent. Rasmussen (5) found that out of ...