Health, 2014, 6, 1447-1452 Published Online June 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/health http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/health.2014.612178 How to cite this paper: Wasniewska, M., Aversa, T., De Luca, F., Valenzise, M., Messina, M.F. and Lombardo, F. (2014) Epi- demiological, Pathophysiological and Clinical Peculiarities of Graves’ Disease in Children with Down and Turner Syndrome: A Literature Review. Health, 6, 1447-1452. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/health.2014.612178 Epidemiological, Pathophysiological and Clinical Peculiarities of Graves’ Disease in Children with Down and Turner Syndrome: A Literature Review Malgorzata Wasniewska, Tommaso Aversa, Filippo De Luca * , Mariella Valenzise, Maria Francesca Messina, Fortunato Lombardo Department of Pediatrics, University of Messina, Messina, Italy Email: * filippo.deluca@unime.it Received 30 April 2014; revised 4 June 2014; accepted 14 June 2014 Copyright © 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Aim: to describe the salient relationships between Graves’ disease (GD) and both Turner syndro- me (TS) and Down syndrome (DS). Design: to conduct a secondary analysis of current literature on this topic. Results: 1) the prevalences of GD in TS and in DS young patients are 1.7% and 6.5‰, respectively, i.e. higher than that in pediatric general population (around 1‰); 2) in both these chromosomopathies GD presentation is often preceded by Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) antece- dents; 3) in both TS and DS, GD presents with a clinical picture very similar to that observed in GD patients without these chromosomopathies; 4) in TS, clinical course of GD under pharmacological therapy is very similar to that observed in non-TS girls; 5) in DS, clinical course of GD under pharmacological therapy is less severe than that in non-DS patients. Conclusions: in the children with either TS or DS, GD is characterized by two common epidemiological peculiarities, i.e. in- creased prevalence rate and elevated frequency of HT antecedents. Keywords Autoimmune Thyroid Diseases, Chromosomopathies, Clinical Course, Hyperthyroidism, Prevalence 1. Introduction Graves’ disease (GD) is an organ-specific autoimmune disease, which represents the commonest cause of hy- * Corresponding author.