Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Iodine deficiency disorders are considered as the most wide spread non infectious diseases of the humanity. Uzbekistan is in the zone of the severe iodine deficiency (ID). According to epidemiologic studies performed in 1998 endemic goiter (EG) prevalence was 80% whereas urinary iodine was <10 μg/l. In May, 2007 Uzbek government legislated the Salt Iodization Law and in 2009 ID evaluation was performed in the Uzbekistan using sentinel approach.

Materials and methods: As recommended by World Health Organization we performed epidemiologic studies using sentinel method in six regions of the country, i.e. examination of children from 3 rural public schools and 3 urban public schools (randomized design). We collected 180 urinary samples and 180 salt samples on the level of households’ iodized salt consumption (HISC) from schoolchildren aged 6–12 years-old from each region. Both total urinary samples number and salt samples on the level of HISC constituted 6480 samples for each group. EG evaluation was performed among schoolchildren aged 6–15 years-old where total number of children constituted 19 212 children in 6 regions of the country (Namangan, Syrdarya, Djizak, Surkhandarya, Andijan and Republic of Karakalpakstan).

Results: Urinary iodine measurements in evaluated regions demonstrated ID in 39.0% of schoolchildren while HISC constituted 61.0%. Of 19 212 children aged 6–15 years-old 9626 (47.63%) had EG. Normal level of HISC registered in 52.0% of schoolchildren whereas 42.0% of children had insufficient salt consumption as 6.0% of evaluated salt was not iodized.

Conclusion: According to our results we consider that the iodine deficiency situation remains as severe in the Republic of Uzbekistan, although, in comparison with the 1998 data there is a positive trend as the endemic goiter prevalence.