 A study demonstrated that at the time of diagnosis, 90% of the patients with clinical orbitopathy were hyperthyroid according to thyroid function tests, while 3% had Hashimoto's thyroiditis, 1% were hypothyroid and 6% did not have any thyroid function tests abnormality.Of patients with Graves' hyperthyroidism, 20 to 25 percent have clinically obvious Graves' ophthalmopathy, while only 3–5% will develop severe ophthalmopathy.In medical literature, Robert James Graves, in 1835, was the first to describe the association of a thyroid goitre with exophthalmos (proptosis) of the eye.