Outcome of Screening for Congenital Hypothyroidism in Mazandaran Province: From Diagnosis to Treatment

Background and Screening for congenital hypothyroidism in newborns is carried out with TSH measurement of blood samples from newborn heel in Mazandaran province since 2006. This paper reports the status of these children until the end of 2012 The study was performed in 2013-2014 using current information. Babies with TSH levels greater than 5 mU / L were treated with levothyroxine for three years. If the drug was stopped abruptly or gradually in three years and normal TSH achieved the disease was regarded transient, otherwise the patients were considered for lifelong follow-up treatments. For data analysis SPSS V.16 was applied. During this period, 269088 infants were screened. Among the cases 548 (54.4% male) were diagnosed with congenital hypothyroidism. The results showed that infants who were treated at each time interval were 43% of permanent and 57% transient hypothyroidism. Age at onset therapy in 95% of cases was before 60 days. The mean time to start treatment was 20.8 ± 10 days. No significant relationship was found between the sex and permanent or transient hypothyroidism. The screening program for congenital hypothyroidism is being performed successfully in Mazandaran province. In some cases, the dosage of drugs and infants’ follow-up intervals varied even between physicians. Also, levothyroxine is either not prescribed according to the infant’s weight or is recorded incorrectly. Follow-up procedures and the decision to discontinue treatment were not similar at 3 years of age of the subjects. Physicians should be informed for the strict implementation of the guidelines of the Ministry of Health. To obtain more accurate information cases of death or immigration should not be removed from the statistics.