Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Quality of life (QoL) and its related physical and psychological symptomatology is an important factor when we treat Graves’ disease.

Objective: To analyze the QoL and physical and psychological symptomatology of patients with hypothyroidism after definitive treatment of Graves’ disease.

Methods: We evaluated 16 patients with hypothyroidism that previously had Graves’ disease. These patients were submitted to total thyroidectomy and/or radioiodine treatment to deal with Graves’ disease. Our sample had a mean age of 58.7±15.0 years, 81.3% were female and 68.8% were married. We assessed thyroid function tests, thyroid antibodies, the resistance to thyroid hormone indices (Thyroid Feedback Quantile-Based Index [TFQI], lipid profile, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, B12 vitamin, folic acid and applied several questionnaires, namely: the Thyroid Dependent Quality of Life questionnaire (ThyDQoL), the Thyroid Symptom Rating Questionnaire (ThyTSQ) and the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). Statistical analysis was performed with the One-way ANOVA test and Pearson’s correlation test. P values ≤ 0.05 were considered as statistically significant.

Results: In this sample we found that patients had a mean BMI of 27.5±4.3 kg/m², TSH 1.67±2.11 µUl/ml and FT4 1.21±0.17 ng/dl. Patients reported a mean QoL value of -2.02 points (range from -9 to 1). In regard to the ThySRQ, 56% of patients have noticed at least moderately memory problems, 62.6% of patients reported at least being moderately tired and 68.9% showed some kind of dizziness symptoms. Nearly 80% of patients did not report any weight gain or appetite problems. In terms of correlations, we found significative correlations between TSH and lack of appetite (r= 0.66; P=0.01), audition problems (r= -0.65; P=0.006) and depression (r= -0.56; P=0.02). We observed correlations between TFQI and weight (r= -0.54; P=0.03) and depression (r= -0.54; P=0.02). We also noticed a negative correlation between FT4 and dizziness symptoms (r= -0.55; P=0.02). Results point out that QoL is negatively correlated with FT3 (r= -0.59; P=0.01) and FT4 (r= -0.49; P=0.05).

Conclusions: In this study we can observe that QoL in general manners seems to be strongly influenced by FT3 and FT4 than by TSH. Our study is in agreement with previous studies suggesting that FT4 has a good sensitivity regarding well-being evaluation. Further studies, with a more robust number of patients are needed to analyze more deeply the nuances of this kind of treatment and its contribution to the QoL.