Endocrine Abstracts

The value of patient-reported outcomes in treatment efficacy assessment of thyroid disorders is of great importance. Recently, a new tool, Comprehensive Symptom Profile (CSP-ThHyperSF27), has been developed to assess symptoms specific for patients with toxic goiters. We aimed to test practicability and sensitivity of CSP-ThHyperSF27 in patients with diffuse/ multinodular toxic goiter undergoing thyroidectomy. A total of 42 patients with diffuse/multinodular toxic goiter were enrolled in this study (mean age 42.8, male/female – 7/35). All the patients underwent thyroidectomy. Patients filled out the CSP-ThHyperSF27 before surgery and at different time-points thereafter. The CSP-ThHyperSF27 is developed to assess the severity of 27 symptoms specific for patients with toxic goiter. Wilcoxon’s matched pairs test was used to compare symptom severity at different time-points. The prevalence of moderate-to-severe symptoms was studied using χ² test or Fisher’s exact test. Practicability of the CSP-ThHyperSF27 was shown: patients needed 5–7 min to answer it; the proportion of missing values was <2% for all questions; the questionnaire found high acceptance reflected by no refusals. Usefulness of the CSP-ThHyperSF27 to distinguish patients in terms of severity and number of symptoms experienced was demonstrated. The information obtained was used by the surgeons at follow-up. After thyroidectomy, reduction in the vast majority of symptoms was observed. At 3 months after surgery, the severity of 16 out of 27 symptoms decreased significantly (P<0.05). Remarkable decrease in the prevalence of moderate-to-severe symptoms after surgery was shown (P<0.05). The CSP-ThHyperSF27 is a sensitive and practical tool to assess symptom profile and severity in patients with toxic goiters. Comprehensive symptom monitoring is recommended to clearly determine treatment outcomes in patients with toxic goiters undergoing thyroidectomy.

[Note: This abstract, although accepted for the meeting, was not presented there.]