Central Hypothyroidism, a Novel Laboratory Measurement
Status:
Unknown status
Trial end date:
2013-07-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Medical management of central hypothyroidism is controversial due to lack of reference for
evaluation of pituitary negative feedback. Therefore, titration of medical treatment is based
on T4 levels, measured with variable laboratory methods. Patients who have central
hypothyroidism usually have concomitant deficiencies in other pituitary hormones for which
they need replacement therapy such as steroids, testosterone and growth hormone. This
combined hormone deficiency makes clinical and laboratory evaluation challenging among these
patients. Symptomatically, central hypothyroidism is relatively mild and lack non-specific
and it might be overlooked due to other hormonal deficiencies. Replacement therapy for
central hypothyroidism is titrated by arbitrary target free T4 levels of above 50th
percentile of normal. The goal of our study is to compare the standard results from well
known measure methods to a new method for measuring Ft4 using Liquid chromatography - tandem
mass spectrometry.