Thyroid Eye Disease Tied to Higher Prevalence of Human Papillomavirus

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By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on Feb 25, 2026.

via HealthDay

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 25, 2026 -- Patients with thyroid eye disease (TED) have a higher prevalence of low-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) diagnosed before autoimmune hyperthyroidism onset than matched controls, according to a research letter published online Feb. 12 in JAMA Ophthalmology.

Moshe I. Weber, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, and colleagues examined the association between HPV and TED using data from deidentified electronic health records from the TriNetX Live Research Network (26,823 matched cases with autoimmune hyperthyroidism and TED).

The researchers found that the prevalence of low-risk HPV was greater in patients with TED than in matched controls (odds ratio [OR], 1.55; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.16 to 2.03; P = 0.003). There was no difference seen in new-onset HPV infections following an autoimmune hyperthyroidism diagnosis between patients with TED (38 patients) and matched controls (31 individuals; OR, 1.23; 95 percent CI, 0.76 to 1.97; P = 0.40). The incidence of low-risk HPV before autoimmune hyperthyroidism was greater than after autoimmune hyperthyroidism (205 versus 69; OR, 2.97; 95 percent CI, 2.26 to 3.90; P < 0.001). There was no association observed for high-risk HPV and TED status before (OR, 1.02; 95 percent CI, 0.80 to 1.30; P = 0.85) or after (OR, 0.91; 95 percent CI, 0.72 to 1.14; P = 0.41) autoimmune hyperthyroidism onset. When comparing 201 patients with TED and low-risk HPV and matched TED controls, patients with low-risk HPV had greater rates of orbital decompression surgery (13.43 versus 5.47 percent; risk ratio, 2.46; 95 percent CI, 1.25 to 4.81; P = 0.006) versus those without HPV. The groups were similar with respect to rates of corticosteroid use, vision loss, eyelid retraction, and strabismus.

"These results suggest that molecular mimicry of HPV is a factor in the pathogenesis of TED," the authors write.

One author disclosed funding from Revance Therapeutics.

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Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

Source: HealthDay

Posted : 2026-02-26 02:01

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