Endocrine Abstracts

Disorders of bone tissue as a complication of hyperthyroidism now become accepted fact. On other side decreasing of serum levels of estrogens in postmenopausal women potentially may increase effects of thyroid hormones on bone tissue.

The aim of our study was investigate with DXA the features of loss of bone mass in women suffering from thyrotoxicosis depending of age and thyrotoxicosis duration.

Material and methods: There were examined 192 Ukrainian women with age from 25 up to 72 years: 95 with thyrotoxicosis, which have a history of disease from 3 month to 20 years and 97 healthy women. Subjects were divided to five age groups (20–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59 and 60–72 years). BMD measurements of the lumbar spine (L1–L4), proximal femur, radial shaft (utradistal and 33% site) and total skeleton were determined by DXA using a densitometer Prodigy (GE Medical systems, Lunar). Data were analyzed using ANOVA and Student’s t-test to examine differences among the groups.

Results: In womens with thyrotoxicosis BMD was significantly decreased in all age groups in whole skeleton and ultradistal radius level, except group 20–29 years at lumbar spine and radius 33% levels and 40–49 years at proximal femur level. Rate of osteoporosis in different age groups was 25, 28.6, 36.8, 62.5 and 89.5% in females with thyrotoxicosis against 15, 0, 0, 10 and 52.9% in control group. Deficiency of BMD rises with age since 50 years old up to 17.9% at lumbar spine, 12.2% at proximal femur and 23.4% at radial shaft levels. Most losing of bone tissue was observed in radial shaft in all age groups. Moreover patients with thyrotoxicosis duration over 5 years compare to rest patients has significant decreased BMD at site 33% radius level (0.772±0.016 g/m² against 0.681±0.035 g/sm², t=2.69, F=1.806, P=0.009).

Conclusion: Most deficiency of BMD in womens with thyrotoxicosis is observed in radial shaft especially. It increases with age and duration of thyrotoxicosis. Thus it is necessary to perform a measurement of BMD in radial shaft during DXA examination for thyrotoxic patients.

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.