Response to Korff re: “Thyroid Eye Disease: A New Name,a New Guide,and a New Era”

Many thanks to Dr. Jeffrey Korff ¹ for taking an interest in what we write and precipitating my response. It was certainly not the intention in my recent commentary ² to ignore the contributions of my friend Terry Smith in the development of teprotumumab, whom I clearly referenced, ³ and admire for his many contributions. However, the focus of my commentary was on disease nomenclature and guidelines, not drug development.

The best description of the current state of understanding for the thyroid aspects of IGF-1 and the IGF-1 receptor is an excellent review from Gimita, Smith Joseph, and Janssen, ⁴ which describes some of the history following Tramantano and Ingbar's seminal observations. Sydney Ingbar was a powerhouse in thyroidology until his passing in 1988 and his contributions should not be forgotten. While I certainly agree there was slow follow-up until Terry Smith ignited the field, there was still plenty of earlier action on growth factor receptors on thyroid cells and fibroblasts and which I do not have the space to reference.

I am not sure that science is ever “fallow” as Dr. Korff suggests. My garden, in contrast, is a completely different story.