Evaluation of Thyroid Dysfunction in the Operating Room Staff in Bojnurd, Iran, 2014

Iodine deficiency is associated with a wide range of disorders such as goiter and hypothyroidism. The present study aimed at evaluating the levels of urinary iodine (UIE), thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), and thyroid hormones (FT3 and FT4) as well as their intercorrelations in thyroids dysfunction among the operating room staff in Bojnurd, North Khorasan Province, Iran.
The current descriptive-analytical study was performed on 65 operating room staff in Bojnurd, in 2014. After obtaining the informed consent from all the participants, a demographic questionnaire was completed for each of them. Then, serum FT4, FT3, TSH, and anti-TPO (anti-thyroid peroxidase antibodies) as well as UIE levels were measured for each subject. Results of the clinical tests were analyzed with SPSS version 21 using chi-square test and logistic regression. P In the current study, 65 subjects were studied of which 49 (75.4%) were female and 16 (24.6%) male. The mean age of the participants was 32.08 ± 7.9 years. Level of TSH in 93.8% of the cases was within the normal range and 6.2% had above normal measures. FT4 and FT3 levels in 95.5% of the cases were normal and in 5.1% above normal limits. The mean UIE in 81.5.8% of the current study cases was normal.
Based on the results obtained in the current study, none of the subjects had iodine deficiency. Given that the current study findings cannot be generalized to the total population of North Khorasan Province, further studies to evaluate iodine status in larger sample sizes are recommended.