High prevalence of asymptomatic hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism in hospitalized elderly females.

To investigate the prevalence of asymptomatic hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism in hospitalized people, we performed thyroid function tests on a group of 2545 elderly patients consecutively observed in a General Hospital in Rome, during a six year period. The rate of asymptomatic hypothyroidism was as high as 0.71% in female patients and only 0.20% in male patients. In asymptomatic hyperthyroid subjects the prevalence rate was 0.58% in females and 0.20% in males. On the whole, prevalence rate of asymptomatic thyropathies resulted 0.94%, showing a clear difference in sex (women 1.29% and men 0.40%). The asymptomatic thyropathies screening of hospitalized elderly women may result in a very low cost diagnosis of many new cases of hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism.

Does it exist also a "late" post-surgical hypoparathyroidism?

Hypoparathyroidism following neck surgery, mainly thyroidectomy, is not a rare event, well known since many years. Post-surgical hypoparathyroidism may occur in form of two clinical syndromes of different etiology and prognosis. The first disease is a transitory hypoparathyroidism that might spontaneously recover within a few weeks or months. The second disease is a permanent hypoparathyroidism needing a definitive opoterapic treatment. Anyhow in both cases, hypocalcemic symptoms begin always within a short time from surgery, usually after an asymptomatic period elapsing from days to months. Only few cases of hypoparathyroidism clinically conclamate after many years from surgery have been reported. Description of a patient with hypoparathyroidism that became clinically evident thirty years after the thyroid surgery is herewith described. Our findings and review of a few cases reported by medical literature, can suggest a third form of post-surgical hypoparathyroidism with the distinctive feature of a very late beginning, probably following a long period of a latent parathyroid insufficiency.