Doctors: Thyroid drug can hurt liver, kill kids

April 10, 2009

A pill used for thyroid disease can cause fatal liver failure in children and should no longer be used to treat them, two doctors warn.

Doctors usually first try either propylthiouracil or methimazole to treat children with Graves’ disease, the most common cause of an overactive thyroid. Other treatments are surgery and radioactive iodine.

But over the past 60 years, reports have popped up linking the use of propylthiouracil in children to liver failure, sometimes fatal or requiring a liver transplant.

Propylthiouracil, or PTU, is also a primary treatment for adults with Graves’ disease, but there appear to be fewer liver complications in adults, according to Donald R. Mattison of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Read Article: Atlanta Journal Constitution

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