Management of hypothyroidism in adults

doi:10.1136/bmj.a801

Published 28 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a801
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a801

Clinical Review

Management of hypothyroidism in adults

Bijay Vaidya, consultant endocrinologist and honorary senior clinical lecturer¹, Simon H S Pearce, professor of endocrinology and honorary consultant physician²

¹ Department of Endocrinology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, Exeter EX2 5DW, and Peninsula Medical School, Exeter, ² Endocrine Unit, Royal Victoria Infirmary and Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne

Correspondence to: B Vaidya bijay.vaidya@pms.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Hypothyroidism is one of the commonest chronic disorders inWestern populations. In the United Kingdom, the annual incidenceof primary hypothyroidism in women is 3.5 per 1000 and in men0.6 per 1000.¹ During 2006 12 million prescriptions for levothyroxine(50 µg or 100 µg tablets) were dispensed in England,equivalent to about 1.6 million people taking long term thyroidreplacement therapy, about 3% of the population.² The managementof hypothyroidism is generally considered straightforward andis mostly carried out in primary care in the UK. Cross sectionalsurveys of patients taking levothyroxine have, however, shownthat between 40% and 48% are either over-treated or under-treated.³⁴ Furthermore, a small but significant proportion of patientscontinue to feel unwell despite taking levothyroxine.⁵ Thisreview discusses current approaches in the management of hypothyroidismin adults.

We searched PubMed and the CochraneLibrary databases for the keywords hypothyroidism and thyroxine.We identified further . . . [Full text of this article]

Drugs preventingabsorption of levothyroxine
Drugs increasing clearance of levothyroxine

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Allahabadia, A., Razvi, S., Abraham, P., Franklyn, J. (2009). Diagnosis and treatment of primary hypothyroidism. BMJ 338: b725-b725 [Full text]

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