Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Cardiothyreosis is a severe and most frequent heart complication due to hyperthyroidism. It includes severe arrhythmias, heart insufficiency or heart coronary insufficiency ± atrial ventricular block, or pulmonary hypertension.

Our aim was to study cardiothyreosis frequency in females, its incidence, its causes, and its response to radical treatment.

Subjects and methods: It is a retro-and prospective study which analyzed 1641 female hyperthyroidisms observed over a long period of time (1981–2011).

All patients had clinical examination, routine and hormonal analyses, and heart exploration based on chest X-rays, electrocardiography and echocardiography ± heart MRI and scintigraphy to look for heart complications.

Results: We observed 235 cardiothyreosis (14.32%), 7.8 cases/year, median age=59.49, the maximum was observed between 1992 and 1996 after iodine supplementation (1990). 68% complicated multinodular goiters vs 28% for auto immune hyperthyroidisms. Auricular fibrillation was observed in 76.52%, heart insufficiency in 50.43%, auricular ventricular block in 1.73% and pulmonary hypertension in 13.4%. Coronary insufficiency was noted in 10.24%. An antecedent of heart disease was found in 60%. Systemic high blood pressure was observed in 19% and diabetes mellitus in 7%. After radical treatment heart complications resolved in 53%.

Conclusion: Cardiothyreosis is frequent in women (14.3%). The most frequent cause was multinodular goiter. The main heart complication was represented by arrhythmias ± heart insufficiency. Coronary insufficiency was observed in 10%. Severe heart complications were observed mainly in women having an antecedent of heart disease. After radical treatment heart complications disappeared in 53%.