Significance of thyrotrophin and thyroxine estimations in type 1 diabetes

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether estimation of thyrotrophin [TSH] and thyroxine [T4] is significant to assess the thyroid status of diabetic patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty patients with type 1 diabetes [25 male and 25 female] aged 9-50 years were included. The mean duration of diabetes was 6.7 +/- 4.3 years. Clinically they were not suffering from any systemic disease or endocrine ailment. Twenty-six, age and sex matched, normal controls were also included. The TSH and and T4 were estimated in the sera of all the subjects using the commercially available ELISA kits. The mean +/- SD concentration of TSH was raised significantly [p < 0.001] in the patients as compared to the controls, whereas the T4 concentration was comparable. Furthermore, 30% diabetics showed significantly elevated TSH concentration than the controls. It is proposed that the estimation of TSH in the patients with type 1 diabetes may be useful in the early identification of thyroid dysfunction