Study subjects
A total of 650 patients with GD and 1300 healthy controls were enrolled
in this study.
Diagnosis of GD and GO according to clinical symptom and thyroid hormone
level based on American thyroid association guidelines (Ross et al.,
2016). Healthy volunteers were
recruited from the same region, and they did not have any other
autoimmune disease and were matched for sex and age with the patients
with GD. The study was registered in the Chinese clinical trial registry
(ChiCTR1900022398) and was approved by the Zunyi Medical University
Ethics Committee (18-ZY-001). All of the procedures were in accordance
with the declaration of Helsinki.