HIGH-INCIDENCE OF JUVENILE GRAVES-DISEASE IN HONG-KONG

OBJECTIVE Childhood Graves' disease has been reported to be rare and e pidemiological data on its incidence are limited, In our Paediatric En docrine Clinic, Graves' disease was the most common thyroid disorder s een, There is no previous epidemiological study on Graves' disease in Chinese children, This study was performed to determine the incidence of childhood Graves' disease in Hong Kong Chinese. DESIGN AND PATIENTS We established a registry of childhood Graves' disease in 1990 at our centre, which has a catchment population of 1 010 000 with 240 000 un der 15 years of age. Graves' disease was diagnosed on clinical feature s, diffuse thyroid gland enlargement, elevated free thyroxine or triio dothyronine levels with suppressed TSH level, All confirmed cases were recorded prospectively, Population data were obtained from the Statis tics Department of the Hong Kong Government. RESULTS Forty-six Chinese children under 15 years of age had a confirmed diagnosis of Graves' d isease during the study period from January 1990 to December 1994, The overall incidence was 3.8/100 000/year with a 95% confidence interval of 1.8-7.3/100 000/year, Incidence was low in children under 4 years, The highest incidence was in girls between 10 and 14 years of age at 15.5/ 100 000/year. The cumulative incidence for boys and girls of dev eloping Graves' disease during the first 15 years was 11 and 104 per 1 00 000 respectively. CONCLUSIONS Our data demonstrate a-very high inci dence of Graves' disease in Hong Kong Chinese children, with an overal l incidence about 5 times that reported in Danish children. A female p redominance was found in all three age groups (0-4, 5-9 and 10-14 year s) and was particularly striking in the adolescent girls.