Universal newborn screening for congenital hypothyroidism.

12 month period between 1st October 2006 and 30th September 2007. 2872 of these were inborn and were considered for calculating the hospital based incidence of CH. TSH values were ≥10 mU/L in 106 infants. Serum T4 and TSH assay confirmed neonatal hypothyroidism in 6 of them. All of them were inborn infants. The study revealed congenital hypothyroidism incidence of 2.1 per 1000 (6/2872) amongst inborn term infants, much higher than the incidence of 1 in 4000 reported in Western literature and 1 in 1700 from other regions of India(4,5). The better pick up rate and the lower costs makes TSH assay a better screening tool than T4 assessment(2,4).