THYROID DISEASE, TSH SCREENING, AND COMORBIDITY

Objective: Although thyroid disease is frequent in the population, it is not clearly established who should be screened for TSH. The aim of this study was to investigate the comorbidities related to thyroid disease and the value of screening TSH. Material and Method: The study included 796 consecutive patients. Age, sex, diagnoses of the patients were recorded, and TSH levels were measured. When they were outside the reference values, measurement was repeated; free T3 and T4 levels were also measured. Results: Of the 796 patients, 37 had known thyroid disease. 10 patients were hyperthyroid, 10 patients were hypothyroid and, 17 had euthyroidism. New diagnoses of overt thyroid disease were made in 4 patients. Subclinical thyroid disease was present in 13.5% and overt thyroid disease was present in 0.5% of the patients. While subclinical hypothyroidism was observed in more women than men (68% vs. 32%, p=0.001), there was no significant difference in subclinical hyperthyroidism between the men and women (p=0.919). There was no correlation between TSH and age. No significant differences were found between those with and without subclinical thyroid disease, in terms of coexisting cardiovascular disease. The frequency of diabetes mellitus was slightly higher in patients with subclinical hyperthyroidism (p=0.048) than in those with subclinical hypothyroidism (p=0.367). Conclusion: When the high cost of thyroid disease is considered, we think that TSH screening may be useful in patients with diabetes and cardiovascular disease, particularly women, although this is not strongly supported by our study