| Objective: To explore the effect of methylprednisolone in the treatment of Graves'ophthalmopathy. Methods: 1. Select 30 cases of Graves' ophthalmopathy with the courses differ from 1 week to 14 months and ages differ from 19 to 72 years. 2. Therapeutic method: (1) Methylprednisolone 500mg added into 250ml saline, QD iv.gtt for 3 days. (2) The interval of each course is 4 days. (3) The treatment last for 4 courses. 3. Criterion: (1) Measure the degrees of exophthalmos before and after each course of treatment (involve each eye). (2) Find out the symptoms of eye by questionnaire, which involve photophobia, tearing, swelling of eye and uncomfortable friction feeling. (3) Test the level of thyroid antibody (include Anti-TPO, Anti-Tg) after each course of treatment. Results: 1. The degree of exophthalmos had no improvement after the first course; 15% cases had an improvement of 1--2mm after the second course; 37% cases had an improvement of 1 ~2mm after the third course; 53% cases had an improvement of l~4.5mm after the fourth course. 2. The questionnaire of eye symptoms: 26% cases had improvement after the first course; 88% cases had obvious improvement after the third and fourth course; 12% cases had no change; no cases aggravated. 3. In some cases the level of thyroid antibody decreased after the second course, and in 27% cases the thyroid antibody decreased after the third and fourth course. But this had no statistic significance and had no relationship with the change of degree of exophthalmos. 4. We found that the patients with the score more than 3 had a good response to methylprednisolone, but those with the score less than 3 had a poor one. Conclusion: 1. The combined therapeutic method of small agent dose and continuous courses have significant effect to infiltrating autoimmune ophthalmopathy. 2. The effect will be even better if the number of courses...
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