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Prevalences of subclinical and overt hypothyroidism with universal screening in early pregnancy

  • Maternal-Fetal Medicine
  • Published:
Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

A Correspondence to this article was published on 09 June 2020

A Correspondence to this article was published on 09 June 2020

Abstract

Purpose

To reveal the prevalence of subclinical and overt hypothyroidism among Turkish population during pregnancy. Also to investigate the prevalence of hypothyroidism using ATA 2017 criteria.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional study. Patients were consisted of 1416 consecutive pregnant women who were universally screened for thyroid disease in their first trimester between 2013 and 2015. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and free T4 (FT4) levels were analyzed during the first antenatal visit (before 12 weeks of gestation). We compared different cutoffs for TSH. We further determined the 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles for TSH and FT4.

Results

Initially, the cutoff of 2.5 IU/ml was selected. Accordingly, 305 women (22.3%) had subclinical hypothyroidism and 22 (1.6%) was diagnosed with overt hypothyroidism. When the cutoff was increased to 4 IU/ml, only 40 (2.9%) women were diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Prevalences of overt hypothyroidism and subclinical hypothyroidism were 0.6% and 2.3%, respectively.

Conclusion

Universal screening of pregnant women with TSH, using the 2.5 mIU/L cutoff; one in four women was found to be a candidate for thyroid hormone replacement in our cohort. When the cutoff was determined to be 4 mIU/L, prevalence of hypothyroidism decreased approximately 10 times.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey

    Deniz Karcaaltincaba, Murat Aykut Ozek, Pinar Calis, Melis Altug Inan & Merih Bayram

  2. Faculty of Medicine, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey

    Nagehan Ocal

Authors
  1. Deniz Karcaaltincaba
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  2. Murat Aykut Ozek
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  3. Nagehan Ocal
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  4. Pinar Calis
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  5. Melis Altug Inan
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  6. Merih Bayram
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Contributions

D. Karcaaltincaba: project development, data analysis, and manuscript editing. M. A. Ozek: data collection, data analysis, and manuscript writing. N. Ocal: data collection. P. Calis: data collection and manuscript editing. M. A. Inan: data collection. M. Bayram: project development and manuscript editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Murat Aykut Ozek.

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The authors have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Institute’s Ethics Committee (Approval No. 14.12.2015–130).

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All participants gave written informed consent.

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Karcaaltincaba, D., Ozek, M.A., Ocal, N. et al. Prevalences of subclinical and overt hypothyroidism with universal screening in early pregnancy. Arch Gynecol Obstet 301, 681–686 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-020-05462-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-020-05462-0

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