Abstract
A woman, 70 years old, was admitted into our University Hospital on September 19, 1979, with a slight fever and general fatigue as her chief complaints. She was examined for a slight liver injury by a doctor several years ago without any advice or treatment. On admission, she did not have any peculiar signs or symptoms such as anemia, jaundice, struma, hepato-splenomegaly or skin manifestation. As for laboratory findings, she showed a high value of E. S. R. (48 mm/hr), globulin of 2.9 g/dl, IgG of 3560 mg/dl, anti-thyroglobulin of 1:1600, anti-microsome of 1:6400 and anti DNA antibodies titers of 1:80 besides abnormal liver function. HBsAg, anti HBs and AFP were negative. She underwent a laparoscopy and a liver biopsy in our clinic and was diagnosed as having chronic active hepatitis with lobular disorganization (pre-cirrhosis). Surgical open-biopsy of thyroid was carried out on March 29, 1980, and she was diagnosed as having chronic thyroiditis in early stage. The patient may be thought to be a comparatively rare case of the so-called "Hepato-thyroiditis syndrome" (Fukase et al., 1967) but the authors think that this case is a good example of the auto-immune mechanism as suggested by Fukase.
