Association of Graves’ Disease and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Summary of Lupus and Basedow Disease Association: The association lupus auto-immune thyroid disease is well known. Lupus is most commonly associated with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. As for Graves’ disease, it is most often associated with pernicious anaemia, vitiligo, idiopathic purpura and myasthenia gravis. To our knowledge, we report the first case of lupus associated with Graves’ disease in sub-Saharan Africa. Observation: A female patient of 52 years old has been followed since February 2010 for systemic lupus diagnosed on biological and immunological clinical ACR criteria. There was no skin ailment and kidneys involved. Combined treatment with high-dose corticosteroids early and rapid decrease and hydroxychloroquine was established with good clinical and biological evolution. One year later the patient developed thyrotoxicosis syndrome and vascular goitre without exophthalmos associated with the presence of antibodies anti receptor of TSH leading to the diagnosis of Graves’ disease. The patient has been treated with synthetic anti-thyroid and beta blocker allowing the regression of clinical symptoms and the normalization of thyroid hormones. Since then, the patient had not shown other signs of systemic affection. Conclusion: Systemic diseases are often associated with autoimmune thyreopathies. But association of lupus with Graves’ disease has been rarely described in the literature. One should always watch out for the occurrence of thyroid disease in front of any systemic disease and vice versa.