Assessment of thyroid status of patients in Solomon Islands: a retrospective study

ABSTRACT

Thyroid Function Tests are used for assessing the thyroid status of an individual. In the Solomon Islands blood samples for thyroid function tests are collected and sent to the Royal Brisbane Hospital Laboratory in Australia on a weekly basis. The major objective of this study was to use the thyroid function tests results obtained over the period 2008 to 2012 to retrospectively assess the prevalence of thyroid dysfunction in the Solomon Islands. This study used convenience sampling that included all the 2070 requests for thyroid function tests from 2008 to 2012 recorded in the registry books in the Clinical Biochemistry Department in the National Medical Laboratory Pathology Division in the National Referral Hospital in Honiara Solomon Islands. The data collected were analyzed using Microsoft excel for Windows 8 and the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences version 20 for Windows. Ethical clearance and permission were obtained from the appropriate authorities. A total of 1485 (71.7%) recorded results were used for data analysis. Thyroid disorders were prevalent in 51.5% of the patients in 2008, 43.9% of the patients in 2009, 54.8% of the patients in 2010, 52.6% of the patients in 2011 and 51.8% of the patients in 2012. The prevailing thyroid disorder in each of the five years was primary hyperthyroidism, 36.4% in 2008, 25.8% in 2009, 31.5% in 2010, 28.7% in 2011 and 28.2% in 2012. The number of thyroid function tests requests for females was about twice that of males in all the various years. Prevalence of primary and subclinical hyperthyroidism was significantly higher among the female patients compared to the male patients in all the various years.