All patients were females with goiter and the characteristic histological changes of lymphatic thyroiditis which soon became known as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
Hakaru Hashimoto named the condition struma lymphomatosa because of a diffuse lymphatic infiltration of the gland with fibrosis and parenchyma atrophy.
The autoimmune nature of thyroiditis was established in 1956, when Ivan M Roitt reported auto-antibodies against thyroglobulin in patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
One year later Wilfred Robert Trotter in 1957 identified a second antigen in the microsomal fraction of thyroid homogenates, which proved to be thyroid peroxidase.
Thyroiditis means ‘inflammation of the thyroid gland’. Hypothyroidism can developed from thyroiditis and the most common cause of thyroiditis in North America is an autoimmune disease, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
Historical background of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
