Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: To research changes in bone mass during treatment on MNG with thyroxin.

Material and methods: For two years, patients and their clinical histories were examined when each ambulatory patient was personally visited by the author. MNG by Hashimoto’s disease and classic MNG were included. The patients with MNG in treatment were placed in the problem group, while the patients who were visited for the first time, and the patients with other endocrine diseases, were placed in the control group. The patients who presented high blood levels of parathyroid hormone (PTH) (above 64 pg/ml) and patients with less than one year evolution were excluded; also excluded were those with pathological causes or suspected of having lost bone mass for other causes, even local. 172 patients were in the treated group (9 males and 163 females) and 105 (8 males and 97 females) in the control group.

Thyroxin doses were adjusted in this way: TSH blood levels were around 1 μU/ml, and always below 3 μU/ml; the same dose was given each day to each patient, only excepting the adjustments.

Bone masses were compared by densitometry.

Results: There was no correlation between time of treatment and bone mass, neither for Z-score nor T-score (P<0.01). Bone mass was better in the treated group than in the control group (P<0.01), by both the mean and the frequency comparisons (P<0.01). This may be explained by the bone protection caused by calcium and cholecalciferol prescription or by the increase in bone matrix thyroxin mediate through protein synthesis.

Conclusion: Treatment of MNG by thyroid hormone in this dosage procedure does not cause osteoporosis, in accordance with the results above expounded. The prescription of calcium and cholecalciferol may be additional bone protection against matrix reabsorption.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.