Professor Gao Tianshu 's Clinical Experience In Treating Graves' Disease

Graves disease, an auto-immune thyroid disease, is the main cause of hyperthyroidism, accounting for approximately 80%-85% of all hyperthyroidism. In recent years, The incidence of Graves disease keeps ascending along with time going by. Thus, this disorder has been drawing great attention from all over the world. The treatment of Graves disease western medicine mainly includes oral anti-thyroid drugs, radioactive iodine therapy and thyroid surgery. All of these three methods are able to effectively suppress the thyroid function, while they do have potential side effects as well. The side effects mainly include: rash, neutropenia, vasculitis,hypothyroidism,easily recurrence and so on. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Graves disease is classified as “Ying Qi”,“Ying Bing”. My tutor, Professor Gao Tianshu, has been devoted to clinical work in endocrine for more than two decades. Professor Gao Tianshu is very diligent, fully focused on medical study. He put a lot of effort on reading traditional medical classics and developing medical skills. Clinically, he advocates the integration of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine. Professor Gao has profound insights for endocrine disease, especially for thyroid disease. In Professor Gao Tianshu’s theory, the key foundation of pathogenisis of Graves disease is yin deficiency in liver and kidney. As to treatment of Graves disease, the entire course of this disease should be divided into two stages: acute stage and recovery stage, then on the basis of different characteristics of different stages, the patients are given treatment according to syndrome differentiation. On acute stage, the main pathological mechanism is fire excess from yin deficiency. So treatment should be conducted by method of nourishing yin,clearing away fire and eliminating the goiter. While in recovery stage, the main pathological mechanism is the stagnation of liver Qi. The emphasis should be placed on relieving the depressed liver, dispersing the stagnated liver Qi, supplementing Qi and eliminating the goiter when treating this disease. My tutor, Professor Gao Tianshu thinks that for Graves disease patients, the best treatment method is to conduct treatment according to syndrome differentiation by traditional Chinese theory, prescribing appropriate herbs and formula, together with low-dosage oral anti-thyroid drugs. With the integrative treatment of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, the thyroid function can be suppressed rapidly and effectively. And the dosage of western drugs can be decreased so that the side effects can be relieved. And also recurrence can be reduced. The clinical effect is very significant.