Thyroid Autoimmunity, Pregnancy and Finally, Data from Kerala
Abstract
In a prospective study of euthyroid pregnant women, subjects with anti-TPO positivity were either treated with LT4 (n=57) or not treated (n=58). The authors reported that LT4 therapy in euthyroid TPO+ve pregnancies could improve miscarriage rate by 75% and premature deliveries by 69%.27 Antibody positive subjects had a higher TSH at baseline (though within the euthyroid range) as compared with antibody negative group. The results of this study suggest that subjects with the autoimmune thyroid disease may have a subtle deficiency of thyroid hormones due to impaired adaptability, and also implies that the judicious use of levothyroxine, at least in subjects with a high-normal TSH, could improve outcomes.
The authors carried out thyroid function in a selected group of neonates born to these mothers, and from the results conclude that such thyroid autoimmunity alone does not “necessarily” imply neonatal thyroid dysfunction. This is indeed an excellent effort at generating valuable data on this intriguing illness.
When publishing with Kerala Medicial Journal (KMJ), authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. Work includes the material submitted for publication and any other related material submitted to KMJ. In the event that KMJ does not publish said work, the author(s) will be so notified and all rights assigned hereunder will revert to the author(s).
The assignment of rights to KMJ includes but is not expressly limited to rights to edit, publish, reproduce, distribute copies, include in indexes or search databases in print, electronic, or other media, whether or not in use at the time of execution of this agreement.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
The author(s) hereby represents and warrants that they are sole author(s) of the work, that all authors have participated in and agree with the content and conclusions of the work, that the work is original, and does not infringe upon any copyright, propriety, or personal right of any third party, and that no part of it nor any work based on substantially similar data has been submitted to another publication.
