The Incidence rate of hypothyroidism following head and neck radiotherapy visiting the radiotherapy clinic at Shafa Medical Center, Kerman, Iran

Hypothyroidism means the production of thyroid hormone is inadequate for normal human activity. Due to the high prevalence of hypothyroidism after radiotherapy with and without surgery and the large number of patients treated at the radiotherapy center of Shafa hospital, this study aimed to determine the incidence of hypothyroidism in patients referred to this center and to motivate identifying them.

This cross-sectional study was performed on 100 patients visiting the Radiotherapy Center of Shafa Hospital during the years 2008-2014. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 20 using t-test in the subgroups.

The mean age of the participants was 56.65 ± 11.29 and 19% were diagnosed with hypothyroidism. There was a significant relation between the stage of tumor (P = 0.014) and type of treatment (P <0.001) with hypothyroidism.

Overall, it seems that the incidence of hypothyroidism in patients receiving radiotherapy is high, especially in patients undergoing radiotherapy with surgery. Special attention should be paid to screening patients with laryngeal cancer or other cancers of the head and neck, after radiotherapy and surgery.