Reconsiderations about antithyroid drug therapy therapy of graves disease

Antithyroid drugs(ATD) therapy is the most classic treatment and the first choice for Graves's disease.But there still have some misunderstandings in the knowledge of these drugs.In fact,ATD can control the clinical manifestations of hyperthyroid effectively,an estimated 50% of patients go into remission when taking an antithyroid drug.It seems,however,that methimazole(MMI) has certain advantages over propylthiouracil(PTU),i.e.it can generally be taken once dayly and has fewer side effects such as leucopenia.Besides,MMI can normalize levels of thyroid hormones more quickly.Moreover,PTU has a more severe hepatotoxity than MMI,so it is not recommended as the main treatment for GD,though.PTU is used as a first line drug for the treatment of hyperthyroidism in pregnancy and lactation.