PREVALENCE IN ABBOTTABAD, PAKISTAN: A HOSPITAL BASED STUDY

Thyroid disorders are one of the common endocrine disorders. Their prevalence is affected by many factors, especially environmental and nutritional ones. Objectives: To ascertain the seroprevalence of hyperthyroidism in clinically suspected hyperthyroid patients. Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study. Setting: Frontier Medical & Dental College, Abbottabad. Period: January to August, 2015. Methods: One hundred and twenty patients were included in the study based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Thyroid function tests (TSH, fT3 & fT4) were performed using enzyme linked immunoassay (ELISA) method. Results: There was preponderance of males in our study with male to female ratio of 1.4:1. Maximum patients (56.67 %) were between the ages of 21-40 years of age, with mean age of study population to be 32.09±13.01 years. The prevalence of hyperthyroidism was 15% based on the results of thyroid function tests. There were 11 males and 7 females with male to female ratio of 1.57:1 and mean age of hyperthyroid patients was 25.72± 8.27 years. The mean value of TSH, fT3 and fT4 was 0.038±0.025 mIU/L, 7.08±2.19 ng/mL and 25.25±6.30 μg/dL respectively in hyperthyroid patients as compared to 3.15±2.23 mIU/L, 2.05±0.88 ng/mL and 10.69±2.69 μg/dL in euthyroid subjects. Conclusion: Thyroid disorders are not very rare among general population. TFTs provide a reliable way of ascertaining the thyroid function. As this is a hospital based study, field studies should be conducted to ascertain the true prevalence of thyroid disorders in the community.