Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Subclinical hypothyroidism (SH) is defined as high TSH accompanied with normal free thyroxine (FT₄). SH has found to be associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and increased mortality. Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is now considered to be a new noninvasive measurement method used for the early detection of CVD susceptibility. EAT has vasocrine and paracrine actions which lead to CVD. We aimed to evaluate measurement of EAT and to detect relationship between EAT and abdominal/visceral fat mass in patients with SH.

Material and methods: This study included 41 patients with SH and 35 healthy controls (matched in age and gender). Demographic data (age, gender, BMI, fat mass (FM), abdominal FM, visceral FM, waist circumstance (WC), hip circumstances (HC), systolic and diastolic blood pressure) and laboratory results (fasting plasma glucose (FPG), LDL cholesterol (LDL-c), HDL cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides (TGs), FT₄, TSH, and anti-TPO) were recorded. EAT was measured with transthoracic echocardiography.

Results: Fat mass, BMI, WC, and WC/HC ratio, visceral and abdominal fat mass were higher in the study group than the control group (P<0.05). While there were no differences in terms of FPG (P=0.780), there were significant differences regarding LDL-C and TGs between the two groups (P=0.002 and P=0.026 respectively). Serum TSH and anti-TPO levels were found higher and FT₄ level was lower in the study group than the control group (P<0.05). Although, there were significant differences in terms of BMI, FM, abdominal and visceral FM, WC, HC, WC/HC ratio, LDL-C, and TG, there were no differences in EAT between the two groups. Mean EAT was 4.61±0.06 mm in the study group and 4.51±0.07 mm in the control group (P=0.532). While positive correlation was found between EAT and demographic parameters and serum TG levels (P<0.05), no correlation was found between EAT and TSH, FT₄, LDL-C, and anti-TPO level (P>0.05).

Conclusion: Despite EAT has been playing an important role in predicting subclinical atherosclerosis in SH, this study could not support this. In our opinion, more studies with more number of patients are needed to claim that.