Anticardiolipin Antibodies and Immunoglobulin M and A in Graves' Disease

Background : graves ' disease is an autoimmune disease, characterizedby the presence of antib odie s directed to tsh receptoror nearby regions as well as antib odies to double strandsdna (dsdna ) anticardiolipin and nuclear antibodies. thisstudy evalu ated anticardiolipin and rheumatoid factor, such asiga and igm antibodies in patients with graves ' disease .patients and methods: anticardiolipin and rheumatoid factorwere measured in se ra of 84 patients (29 male, 55 female)with ev idence of graves ' disease and 41 healthy individuals(15 male, 26 female ) with negati ve history of hyperthyroidi smand other auto immune diseases.results: mean level of anti cardiolipin antibod y (acla ) inpatients and control groups were 0.192±0.11 and 0.087±0.200optical density (0 0) respectively. the level of igmrhematoidfactor (igm-rf) of patients and healthy controlgroups was the same , whereas the mean iga-rf levels in patientswas significantly lower than control group.conclusion: anticardi ol ipin level in different studies showedvariou s results which may be due to genetic backgrounds.lower level of iga-rf may also be due to environmental factors,which stimulate specific lymphocytes that producing thistype of antibodies