ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Thyroid Endocrinology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1655598
Clinical Profiling of TPOAb and TGAb in Patients with Thyrotrophin Receptor Antibody-Negative Thyroid Eye Disease: A Single-Center Observational Study in China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
- 23rd Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background:Thyrotrophin receptor antibody (TRAb)-negative thyroid eye disease (TED) constitutes a clinically significant subset of TED, yet its features remain inadequately characterized. This study characterizes the clinical features of TRAb-negative TED patients. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, conducted at a Chinese tertiary hospital, 86 TRAb-negative TED patients underwent comprehensive ocular examinations and thyroid function tests.Clinical characteristics were systematically analyzed. Results: Of the 86 patients (mean age 45.24 ± 10.78 years; 53.5% female), 86.0% (n=74) exhibited bilateral ocular involvement. The primary manifestations included proptosis, eyelid edema, and eyelid retraction. The TPOAb (-)/TGAb (+) subgroup demonstrated significantly higher frequencies of eyelid erythema and lagophthalmos, along with severe NOSPECS grading, reduced visual acuity, elevated orbital pressure, and marked soft tissue involvement (all p<0.05). TPOAb-positive patients had significantly greater proptosis (p<0.05), while TGAb-positive patients showed an increased incidence of eyelid erythema (p<0.05). TGAb was identified as an independent risk factor for eyelid erythema (p<0.01).ROC analysis for TGAb predicting eyelid erythema yielded an AUC of 0.851 (sensitivity 0.778, specificity 0.831) at 3.980 IU/mL. Conclusion: TRAb-negative TED displays distinct clinical features. TPOAb and TGAb levels are associated with specific manifestations, highlighting their potential value in the assessment and management of TRAb-negative TED.
Keywords: thyrotrophin receptor antibody-negative, Thyroid eye disease, Clinical Characteristics, Anti-thyroglobulin antibody, Clinical Management
Received: 28 Jun 2025; Accepted: 22 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jing, Fu, Yang, Li, Ma, Wu and Tang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Gaojing Jing, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
Wei Wu, 3rd Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China
Xulei Tang, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.