The late Marty Feldman, actor and comedian, who had thyroid eye disease

Authors of a US study found a possible association between human papillomavirus (HPV) and thyroid eye disease (TED).

Published in JAMA Ophthalmology, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s case-control study of 22 patients demonstrated molecular mimicry between HPV’s capsid protein and key autoimmunity targets in TED. Researchers performed enzyme-linked immunoassays on orbital adipose tissue samples from 11 participants with TED undergoing orbital decompression surgery and 11 control participants undergoing blepharoplasty. They found significant differences in the mean normalised optical density levels of human papillomavirus 18 L1 immunoglobulin G among tissues of controls vs participants with chronic TED, controls vs participants with acute active TED, and participants with chronic TED vs acute active TED.

Along with previous studies citing instances of TED following Covid-19 infection in the absence of thyroid dysfunction, the findings suggest an immunological link contributing to TED’s pathogenesis, opening new potential avenues for understanding and management of the disease, said researchers.