Study of the origin of patients and types of thyroidopathies observed in the Endocrinology Outpatient Department of Hospital São Lucas – PUCRS from 2005-2006 <b>[Abstract in English]</b>

Abstract

Aims: To identify the origin and the clinical characteristics of patients attending the thyroid outpatient clinic from Hospital São Lucas da PUCRS between 2005 and 2006.
Methods: A retrospective study was conducted. From 824 medical appointments scheduled from July 1st, 2005 to July 31, 2006, the medical records of 432 patients were randomly selected and examined. From these, 185 showed the pathologies studied, with the results being recorded. The results were analyzed through descriptive statistics, chisquare test and Fisher’s exact test.
Results: Distribution of the studied pathologies according to their frequency were: Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (51.9% of the cases), Graves’s disease (35.1%,) toxic multinodal goiter (9.7%) and toxic adenoma (3.2%). Thirty seven percent of the patients were from Porto Alegre and 61.1% were from other places. A statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) concerning the presence of selfantibodies was found between the pathologies mediated by self-immunity and those pathologies with no self-immunity. Patients suffering from Hashimoto’s thyroiditis had received hormone reposition therapy in 94.8% of the cases and those suffering from Graves’s disease had been submitted to medical therapy previously to the radioactive iodine in 37 cases (56.9%).
Conclusions: Most patients were from regions close to the metropolitan area. It is believed that transportation of patients to tertiary-level assistance centers may be less expensive than rendering a highly-specialized service in such regions.
KEY WORDS: THYROID DISEASES/epidemiologia; HYPOTHYROIDISM; HYPERTHYROIDISM; HASHIMOTO DISEASE; THYROIDITIS; GRAVES DISEASE.