Study of Reticulocyte count and Thyroid Hormones in Hypothyroidism in children and adults

Hypothyroidism in the young child and neonate is an urgent situation as proper development of neural tissue in early life requires adequate levels of thyroid hormones. Deficiency can cause severe irreversible mental, physical handicaps-cretinism. Therefore an early diagnosis and treatment is very essential by neonatal screening for this disorder worldwide. The Objectives was to study the importance of reticulocyte count and to evaluate various parameters like T3, T4 and TSH in the hypothyroid cases. 14 cases and 9 controls in the pediatrics age group and 19 cases and 6 controls in the adult age group were studied. Both cases and controls were subjected to investigations like T3, T4 and TSH, Reticulocyte count and Hemoglobin. Statistical analysis was done using mean and standard deviation. Mean difference was tested using student ‘t’ test and with and without log transformations. The values of the T4 levels in the hypothyroid cases recorded was 2.53+4.4 mcg/dl which was moderately significant when compared to the controls who had values of 6.31+1.09 (p < 0.05). Similarly TSH values were also high with values of 63.61+46.53 microunits/ml which was found to be more significant than control who had low levels of 3.15+1.58 (p < 0.01). Reticulocyte counts in the pediatric cases of hypothyroidism showed low values of 0.63+0.27% which was highly significant to that of controls with values of 1.19+0.46% (p < 0.01). Reticulocyte count can be used as an alternate economical and accessible indicator in knowing the prognosis of hypothyroidism.