Thyroid dysfunction and associated antibodies among children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus

Abstract EN

Objective: Diabetes mellitus and thyroid diseases are the two most common endocrine disorders encountered in clinical practice.

Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and thyroid disorders have been shown to mutually influence each other, and associations between both conditions have long been reported.

The aim of this study is to assess thyroid function in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus patients and its relation to certain clinical and biochemical data.

Methods: A case-control study conducted on fifty children with type 1 diabetes (22 males and 28 females), attending Layla Qasim Diabetic Centre in Erbil city/Iraq from 1st February 2014 to 30th April 2014.

We included those with regular follow and were matched for sex and age with fifty children as normal controls.

In order to clarify the mechanism of impaired thyroid hormone levels in patients with T1DM, thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), total thyroxine (T4), total triiodothyronine (T3), antithyroperoxidase antibody (anti-TPO Ab), antithyroglobulin antibody (anti-TG Ab), HbA1c and growth parameters were measured.

Results: The mean concentration of TSH was raised significantly (p=0.034) in T1DM patients with T4 decreased significantly (p≤0.001), whereas the T3 concentration had no significant differences between two groups.

The mean concentration of anti-TPO Ab was raised significantly (p=0.017) in diabetic patients, and is significantly associated with older aged diabetics, who had higher Body Mass Index (BMI), high TSH and low T4 levels.

Conclusions: Estimation of TSH, T4 and anti-TPO Ab are useful in identification of thyroid dysfunction in type I diabetic patients despite no apparent clinical signs of thyroid disease