Study of anemia in primary hypothyroidism

Ram Prakash Patel, Atishay Jain

Thyroid Research and Practice 2017 14(1):22-24

Context: Thyroid hormones directly or indirectly, through erythropoietin, stimulate growth of erythroid colonies. In the deficiency of thyroid hormones, anemia frequently develops and may be normocytic, hypochromic-microcytic, or macrocytic. Aims: In this study, we evaluated the types of anemia and its causes in patients with untreated primary hypothyroidism. Settings and Design: This is an observational study conducted at department of general medicine of a tertiary care center. The duration of study was 1 year, November 2015–October 2016. Subjects and Methods: Four hundred and seventy-two patients of overt hypothyroidism or subclinical hypothyroidism were evaluated for possible inclusion in this study. Out of these 112 participants were recruited for the study after fulfilling inclusion criteria. Statistical Analysis Used: Microsoft Excel® and SPSS® 20 for Windows® were used for data storage and analysis. The qualitative data were expressed in percentages, and quantitative data were expressed as mean ± standard deviation. Student's t-test and Chi-square test were used to determine statistical difference between variables. Results: In our study, anemia frequency was 18% in the subclinical hypothyroid patients and 11% in the overt hypothyroid group. In the subgroup analysis of the hypothyroid patients, anemia of chronic disease was most common anemia in patients with overt and subclinical hypothyroidism. Conclusions: Anemia is a common finding in overt hypothyroidism, but anemia is not listed among the consequences of untreated subclinical hypothyroidism. Type and cause of anemia is also different in overt and subclinical hypothyroid patients. Therefore, anemia in hypothyroidism needs to be properly evaluated because treatment varies with etiology of anemia.

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