Frequency Distribution of Spectrum of Clinical Presentations in Hypothyroidism of Both Clinical and Subclinical Cases in SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre

Abstract

BACKGROUND In the recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the number of patients getting diagnosed with clinical and subclinical hypothyroidism. We conducted a study to determine the current prevalence of this rising problem, and to identify rare clinical features for which patients seek medical help and get diagnosed as clinical or subclinical hypothyroidism. METHODS This study is a cross sectional study. The study was done over a period of 2 months (May and June 2018) on patients who visited the medicine and endocrine OPDs in SRM Medical College and Hospital, Kattankulathur. Seventy-six patients, who were proved to have either clinical or subclinical hypothyroidism and were satisfying all criteria were screened for different symptoms & signs of hypothyroidism with the help of a questionnaire. RESULTS On analysing the obtained data, it was observed that some of the features deemed as rare were in fact encountered in significant proportions of the population. 76.32% of the cases were women and the remainder were men. The overall ratio of clinical to subclinical cases was found to be 1.7:1. Overall, ages 14-24 had the maximum number of cases and ages 65+ had the minimum number of cases. Overall, most common symptom was found to be obesity, and the least common was found to be carpel tunnel syndrome. A more detailed explanation is given in the discussions part of this article.