Study of Atorvastatin and Its Effects in Clinical and Radiological Aspects in Patients With Moderate-to-Severe Thyroid Eye Disease

The trial tests the hypothesis that, in adults with active, moderate-to-severe Graves' orbitopathy, 24 weeks of oral atorvastatin 20 mg daily added to a standard 12-week course of intravenous methylprednisolone produces a greater reduction in extraocular muscle size than intravenous methylprednisolone alone, and that any such reduction is accompanied by lower expression of TSH receptor, IGF-1 receptor, PDGF receptor, PI3K/AKT and miR-155 transcripts, and higher expression of miR-146a. The prespecified direction for miR-146a follows its reported suppression in CD4+ T cells in active disease [26]. Reported directions of change are compartment-specific and not unanimous, so the transcript analyses are exploratory.