TRANSMISSION OF THYROTOXICOSIS OF AUTOIMMUNE TYPE BY SIBLING ALLOGENEIC BONE-MARROW TRANSPLANT

This case report is on a 25-year-old male with acute myeloblastic leuk aemia who achieved a remission after cytoxic therapy and whole-body ir radiation. He received a bone marrow transplant from his human leucocy te antigen (HLA)-identical sister who had unsuspected autoimmune thyro id disease. Nine months later the bone marrow recipient developed thyr otoxicosis of autoimmune type at a time when his circulating lymphocyt es were of 46XX karyotype. It is suspected that the thyrotoxicosis res ulted from the transplantation of a clone of lymphocytes predisposed t o the production of thyroid-stimulating autoantibodies.