Immune status of goats in endemic goitre and its therapeutic management

To know the functional status of immune system, 24 clinically affected goitrous goat were procured from an endemic area and divided into three groups of A, B and C of eight each. Group A and B goats were treated with colloidal iodine at the rate of 0.1 mg/kg body weight×100 days and synthetic sodium thyroxine at the rate of 0.2 mg/day orally along with distilledwater×100 days, respectively. Significant depression of cell mediated immune response and humoral immune response were recorded in goitrous goats before institution of any treatment. Thyroidal hormone profile was also significantly low in affected goats in comparison to healthy one. Immunological parameters of all the groups of goats were recorded at every 20 day interval up to 100 days. After 100 days of treatment, there were significant increases in total immunoglobulin, antibody titre, phagocytic index, cutaneous hyper sensitivity skin reaction (DNCB) and thyroid hormones T3 and T4 in goats of groups A and B in comparison to untreated disease control group of goitrous goat. However, over all therapeutic response in colloidal iodine treated groups of goitrous goats was more pronounced in comparison to synthetic thyroxine medicated group of goats. © 2005 Published by Elsevier B.V.