Glucocorticoids in the medical management of Graves' ophthalmopathy.

Graves' ophthalmopathy (GO) is a challenging disease that poses therapeutic dilemmas for endocrinologists and ophthalmologists. Progress in medical therapy has been slow. Numerous new treatments have been reported to have a beneficial effect. However, current evidence indicates that glucocorticoids (GC) represent the only class of drug therapy which either in isolation or combined with other therapies has an unequivocal role in the routine clinical management of patients with GO. Recent advances include better definition of factors predictive of response to treatment and the formulation of specific GC regimens that combine high efficacy with a low risk of unwanted side-effects.