[The 20-minute iodine uptake in Graves' disease. 2. Natural course during medical treatment (author's transl)].

The early (20 min) radioiodine uptake has been used to monitor the fluctuations in disease activity among 35 Graves' disease patients treated for 18 months with carbimazole and T3. A wide variety of behaviour was observed. Although as a group the uptake tended to fall progressively with time, in some it fell only to rise again and in others it fluctuated erratically. The initial fall in uptake in a substantial minority of patients was sufficient to suggest that carbimazole may exert a fundamental and beneficial influence of the immunological disturbance in Graves' disease.