Rare Co-occurrence of Ocular Myasthenia Gravis and Thyroid-Associated Orbitopathy (Ophthalmopathy) in an Individual With Hypothyroidism

Ocular myasthenia gravis (Ocular MG, OMG) shares many clinical features with thyroid-associated orbitopathy or thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO). In the rare instance of their coexistence, clinicians may fail to diagnose ocular MG when TAO is also present. Here we report the case of a patient with both TAO and ocular MG, whose “hyperthyroidism”—most likely the hashitoxicosis variant of Hashimoto's thyroiditis—rapidly transformed to hypothyroidism after radioactive iodine therapy. This is reminiscent of a previous case of a patient with MG, in whom disease onset coincided with the methimazole-induced transformation from hyper- to hypothyroidism. It is possible that the same transformation from “hyper-” to hypothyroidism, which occurred after radioactive iodine therapy and was accompanied by hypothyroidism-associated orbitopathy (ophthalmopathy), may have induced the development of myasthenia gravis in our patient. The hypothyroidism may have been caused by the radioactive iodine therapy and/or it may simply reflect the natural course of the hashitoxicosis variant of Hashimoto's thyroiditis. The co-occurrence of hypothyroidism, hypothyroidism-associated orbitopathy (ophthalmopathy) and ocular MG has never been reported. Our case highlights the need for clinicians to focus on overlapping symptoms of hyperthyroidism and the hashitoxicosis variant of Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and to carefully differentiate between them, especially when deciding on radioactive iodine therapy. In addition, our case highlights that the possible co-occurrence of TAO should be considered when a patient with thyroid disease displays both ptosis and eye movement dysfunction, and when only the ptosis is dramatically resolved after treatment with pyridostigmine bromide

Analytical results for the superflow of spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices

In this paper, we show that for sufficiently strong atomic interactions, there exist analytical solutions of current-carrying nonlinear Bloch states at the Brillouin zone edge to the model of spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with symmetric spin interaction loaded into optical lattices. These simple but generic exact solutions provide an analytical demonstration of some intriguing properties which have neither an analog in the regular BEC lattice systems nor in the uniform spin-orbit-coupled BEC systems. It is an analytical example for understanding the superfluid and other related properties of the spin-orbit-coupled BEC lattice systems.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Association Between Serum Uric Acid Levels and Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

Objective: The objective of the present study was to meta-analyze relevant literature to gain a comprehensive understanding of the potential relationship between serum uric acid levels and risk of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV).Methods: The databases of PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, and SinoMed were systematically searched for observational case-control studies of the association between BPPV and serum uric acid levels published up to October 2018. Data from eligible studies were meta-analyzed using Stata 12.0.Results: A total of 12 studies were included in the analysis. There was a strong tendency for serum uric acid levels to be associated with risk of BPPV among studies conducted in China (OR 0.69, 95%CI 0.01–1.40, p = 0.053), but not among studies outside China (OR 1.07, 95%CI 1.08–3.22, p = 0.33). Across all studies, serum uric acid level was significantly higher among individuals with BPPV than among controls (OR 0.78, 95%CI 0.15–1.41, p = 0.015), yet it did not independently predict risk of the disorder (OR 1.003, 95%CI 0.995–1.012, p = 0.471).Conclusion: The available evidence suggests that BPPV is associated with elevated levels of serum uric acid, but these levels may not be an independent risk factor of BPPV