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Thyroid disease awareness is associated with high rates of identifying subjects with previously undiagnosed thyroid dysfunction

BACKGROUND: Conventional screening for hypothyroidism is controversial. Although hypothyroidism is underdiagnosed, many organizations do not recommend screening, citing low disease prevalence in unselected populations. We studied attendees at a thyroid health fair, hypothesizing that certain patient...

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Main Authors: Canaris, Gay J, Tape, Thomas G, Wigton, Robert S
Format: Online Article Text
Language:English
Published: BioMed Central 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3643833/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23590562
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-351
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author Canaris, Gay J
Tape, Thomas G
Wigton, Robert S
author_facet Canaris, Gay J
Tape, Thomas G
Wigton, Robert S
author_sort Canaris, Gay J
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Conventional screening for hypothyroidism is controversial. Although hypothyroidism is underdiagnosed, many organizations do not recommend screening, citing low disease prevalence in unselected populations. We studied attendees at a thyroid health fair, hypothesizing that certain patient characteristics would enhance the yield of testing. METHODS: We carried out an observational study of participants at a Michigan health fair that focused on thyroid disease. We collected patient-reported symptoms and demographics by questionnaire, and correlated these with the TSH values obtained through the health fair. RESULTS: 794 of 858 health fair attendees participated. Most were women, and over 40% reported a family history of thyroid disease. We identified 97 (12.2%) participants with previously unknown thyroid dysfunction. No symptom or combination of symptoms discriminated between hypothyroid and euthyroid individuals. Hypothyroid and euthyroid participants in the health fair reported each symptom with a similar prevalence (p > 0.01), a prevalence which was very high. In fact, when compared with a previously published case-control study that reported symptoms, the euthyroid health fair participants reported a higher symptom prevalence (range 3.9% to 66.3%, mean 31.5%), than the euthyroid individuals from the case-control study (range 2% to 54%, mean 17.4%). CONCLUSIONS: A high proportion of previously undiagnosed thyroid disease was identified at this health fair. We initially hypothesized symptoms would distinguish between thyroid function states. However, this was not the case in this health fair screening population. The prevalence of reported symptoms was similar and high in both euthyroid and hypothyroid participants. Because attendees were self-selected, it is possible that this health fair that focused on thyroid disease attracted participants specifically concerned about thyroid health. Despite the lack of symptom discrimination, the much higher prevalence of hypothyroidism in this study (12%) compared with the general population (<2%) suggests that screening may be appropriate and effective in certain circumstances such as thyroid health fairs.
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spelling pubmed-36438332013-05-04 Thyroid disease awareness is associated with high rates of identifying subjects with previously undiagnosed thyroid dysfunction Canaris, Gay J Tape, Thomas G Wigton, Robert S BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Conventional screening for hypothyroidism is controversial. Although hypothyroidism is underdiagnosed, many organizations do not recommend screening, citing low disease prevalence in unselected populations. We studied attendees at a thyroid health fair, hypothesizing that certain patient characteristics would enhance the yield of testing. METHODS: We carried out an observational study of participants at a Michigan health fair that focused on thyroid disease. We collected patient-reported symptoms and demographics by questionnaire, and correlated these with the TSH values obtained through the health fair. RESULTS: 794 of 858 health fair attendees participated. Most were women, and over 40% reported a family history of thyroid disease. We identified 97 (12.2%) participants with previously unknown thyroid dysfunction. No symptom or combination of symptoms discriminated between hypothyroid and euthyroid individuals. Hypothyroid and euthyroid participants in the health fair reported each symptom with a similar prevalence (p > 0.01), a prevalence which was very high. In fact, when compared with a previously published case-control study that reported symptoms, the euthyroid health fair participants reported a higher symptom prevalence (range 3.9% to 66.3%, mean 31.5%), than the euthyroid individuals from the case-control study (range 2% to 54%, mean 17.4%). CONCLUSIONS: A high proportion of previously undiagnosed thyroid disease was identified at this health fair. We initially hypothesized symptoms would distinguish between thyroid function states. However, this was not the case in this health fair screening population. The prevalence of reported symptoms was similar and high in both euthyroid and hypothyroid participants. Because attendees were self-selected, it is possible that this health fair that focused on thyroid disease attracted participants specifically concerned about thyroid health. Despite the lack of symptom discrimination, the much higher prevalence of hypothyroidism in this study (12%) compared with the general population (<2%) suggests that screening may be appropriate and effective in certain circumstances such as thyroid health fairs. BioMed Central 2013-04-16 /pmc/articles/PMC3643833/ /pubmed/23590562 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-351 Text en Copyright © 2013 Canaris et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Canaris, Gay J
Tape, Thomas G
Wigton, Robert S
Thyroid disease awareness is associated with high rates of identifying subjects with previously undiagnosed thyroid dysfunction
title Thyroid disease awareness is associated with high rates of identifying subjects with previously undiagnosed thyroid dysfunction
title_full Thyroid disease awareness is associated with high rates of identifying subjects with previously undiagnosed thyroid dysfunction
title_fullStr Thyroid disease awareness is associated with high rates of identifying subjects with previously undiagnosed thyroid dysfunction
title_full_unstemmed Thyroid disease awareness is associated with high rates of identifying subjects with previously undiagnosed thyroid dysfunction
title_short Thyroid disease awareness is associated with high rates of identifying subjects with previously undiagnosed thyroid dysfunction
title_sort thyroid disease awareness is associated with high rates of identifying subjects with previously undiagnosed thyroid dysfunction
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3643833/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23590562
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-351
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