Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: To find a relation between thyroid parameters (thyroxin serum level, thyroid antibodies, thyroid gland volume and ultrasound texture) and serum level of selenium.

Background: Selenium deficiency can lead to a decrease of triiode-thyronine in peripheral tissues. Changes in thyroid hormone production can be reflected in followed thyroid parameters.

Methods: In 33 patients ultrasound examination of thyroid gland was performed, volume was determined and texture features (spatial and second-order co-occurrence texture properties) were computed. Also free thyroxin, anti-thyroglobulin, anti-thyroperoxidase, anti-thyrotropin receptor (TRAK) and selenium serum levels (Se) were measured.

Results: A correlation between TRAK and Se with a very high correlation coefficient 0.95 (P=0.01) was found. Furthermore significant correlation between Se and thyroid volume was found with correlation coefficient −0.54 (P=0.001). Additionally we found several correlations between Se and following texture features: Euclidean distance from standard deviation to the median of original pixel gray levels and their four gray-level transformations (r=−0.38, P<0.05), Euclidean distances from average deviation of original pixel grey levels and their four gray-level transformations to their mean and median (r=−0.38, P<0.05).

Conclusion: We have found that there is a relation between selenium serum level and volume of thyroid gland. This is in concordance with known fact that selenium deficiency impairs normal thyroid metabolism. Our finding suggests that selenium supplementation, in addition to well-established iodine prophylaxis, may protect against goiter growth and optimize the function of thyroid axis. This is in concordance with other authors’ findings. Another interesting finding is that selenium levels were also related to texture features representing thyroid morphological structure and TRAK. This suggests that selenium deficiency might have a role in development of autoimmune thyroid disorders.

The study was supported by of Czech Academy of Sciences (IET101050403)