Influence of hypoxic therapy on the content of individual cytokines in women with autoimmune thyroiditis

Background. The high prevalence of autoimmune thyroiditis and the insufficient effectiveness of hormone replacement therapy dictate the need to explore alternative methods of treating the disease. These methods include interval hypoxic therapy, but its effect on the cytokine profile in autoimmune thyroiditis has not been studied enough. Aim. To study the effect of interval hypoxic therapy in combination with hormone replacement therapy on cytokine status in autoimmune thyroiditis and hypothyroidism. Material and methods. 136 women with primary diagnosed autoimmune thyroiditis and hypothyroidism were examined. Half of them (n=68) received only hormone replacement therapy for 12 months. The rest of the women (n=68), along with sodium levothyroxine, underwent sessions of interval hypoxic therapy (every 3 months for 10 days according to the formula 555). The concentrations of interleukins-4, -6, -8, -10 and tumor necrosis factor in blood serum were determined. To compare the results in groups, KruskalWallis rank univariate analysis and Dunn's test were used. The Wilcoxon t-test was used to compare two related samples. Results. Both isolated hormone therapy and its combination with hypoxic therapy did not affect the concentrations of interleukins-4, -8, -10 and tumor necrosis factor in the blood serum of women with initially diagnosed autoimmune thyroiditis and hypothyroidism. However, hypoxic therapy caused a decrease (p=0.0001) in the initially elevated concentration of interleukin-6 to the level of the control group, which did not happen with the isolated intake of levothyroxine sodium. Conclusion. The combination of sodium levothyroxine with hypoxic therapy causes a decrease in the level of interleukin-6, which is elevated in women with newly diagnosed autoimmune thyroiditis and hypothyroidism.