ENDOCRINOLOGY AND ADOLESCENCE: Congenital hypothyroidism: a clinical update of long-term outcome in young adults

Abstract

Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is the most common congenital endocrine disorder. The early treatment of CH patients has successfully improved the prognosis and management of this disorder. Optimal treatment and management throughout the patient's life, beginning in the neonatal period, are required to ensure long-term health. Affected patients should be offered assessments of associated medical conditions and provided with accurate information about their condition throughout their lives, but particularly during the transition from pediatric to adult services. This review provides a summary of current knowledge about the long-term outcomes of these patients and appropriate management into early adulthood. We carried out a systematic search of the Medline database to identify relevant articles. Despite major improvements in prognosis, the impact of CH is clearly not uniform, and management should take into account a broader range of relevant indicators, including CH severity, associated comorbid conditions and the adequacy of treatment during childhood and adulthood. The early diagnosis and management of associated medical conditions, and better educational strategies to improve compliance with treatment, should improve the long-term prognosis. Further studies are required to explore changes with aging.

Socioeconomic Determinants Affecting Compliance to therapy in Patients with Congenital Hypothyroidism in Sharkia Governorate

“…Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) had gained its recognition among the endocrinological disorders owing the fact that it's the most common preventable cause of mental retardation in children. (1) Congenital hypothyroidism is defined as thyroid hormone deficiency that exist at birth. It is mainly due to problem in the thyroid gland development (dysgenesis) or due to disruptions in thyroid hormone biosynthesis (dyshormonogenesis).…”

Even in the era of congenital hypothyroidism screening mild and subclinical sensorineural hearing loss remains a relatively common complication of severe congenital hypothyroidism

“…Other studies, in contrast, documented no hearing impairment in patients with screened CH (Francois et al, 1994;Hashemipour et al, 2012). However, only a few studies have focused on neurosensory function of CH patients identified by neonatal CH screening programs and treated early (Leger, 2014) and, therefore, this issue remains still controversial.…”

Congenital Hypothyroidism: Role of Nuclear Medicine

“…The other cause of CH is abnormal hormone production (dyshormonogenesis) (9,10). In this case the thyroid is present, in the normal position (eutopic thyroid), with or without goitre, but it is non functional.…”