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Top 5 thyroid stories posted in the last month
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In honor of World Thyroid Day today, Endocrine Today compiled a list of the top five thyroid news stories and videos posted over the past 2 months.
Healio.com/Endocrinology readers were interested in management of hyperparathyroidism, thyrotoxicosis and thyroid storm mortality rate, and much more.
Medical management of primary hyperparathyroidism appropriate in older patients
AUSTIN, Texas — Medical management may be appropriate for adults aged 80 years and older with primary hyperparathyroidism due to lower 24-hour urine calcium levels, higher vitamin D levels and lower prevalence of nephrolithiasis compared with younger patients.
“Age is a factor in the presentation of primary hyperparathyroidism,” Xiangbing Wang, MD, PhD, from the department of medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, told Endocrine Today. “Our results suggest that the elderly [primary hyperparathyroidism] patients have a less severe form of disease.” Read more.
Thyroid patient education materials not adequately targeted to patient reading level
AUSTIN, Texas — Online patient education materials addressing thyroid cancer are overwhelmingly written at a reading level beyond that recommended by national health care organizations, according to a speaker at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists’ Annual Scientific and Clinical Congress.
“The patient education materials available to the patients on thyroid cancer treatment on the most frequently browsed web sites are above the national recommendation [reading] level,” Rashika Bansal, MD, an internal medicine fellow at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center/New York College, NJ, said during a presentation. Read more.
In-hospital mortality rate increases with thyrotoxicosis, thyroid storm
AUSTIN, Texas — Adults with thyrotoxicosis also diagnosed with thyroid storm have a longer in-hospital stay, in-hospital mortality rate and higher admission costs compared with adults with thyrotoxicosis without thyroid storm.
Guillermo E. Umpierrez, MD, CDE, and colleagues used data from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) to determine the incidence, in-hospital mortality and hospitalization costs for patients with thyrotoxicosis with or without thyroid storm. The analysis included 133,126 adults (mean age, 50 years; 78% women) admitted with a primary diagnosis of thyrotoxicosis from 2003 to 2013. Read more.
Concurrent milk ingestion may affect oral levothyroxine absorption
ORLANDO, Fla. — Patients using levothyroxine should be advised against taking their thyroid hormone replacement therapy simultaneously with cow’s milk, as concurrent ingestion may reduce absorption of the medication, according to new data presented at the Endocrine Society Annual Meeting.
“This study is the first to show that drinking cow’s milk at the same time as taking levothyroxine reduces the absorption of the medication. The findings support previous literature showing the interference of calcium supplements with levothyroxine absorption,” Deborah Chon, MD, an endocrinology fellow at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, said during a press conference. Read more.
VIDEO: Joint session offers thyroid surgeons’ insights into thyroidectomy
ORLANDO, Fla. — In this video exclusive, Megan R. Haymart, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, discusses sessions targeted to members of the Endocrine Society as well as the American Association of Endocrine Surgeries, which was held concurrently with the ENDO meeting.
According to Haymart, one popular session addressed controversies in thyroid surgery and included debates about the use of hemithyroidectomy compared with total thyroidectomy for thyroid cancer and the impact of molecular diagnostics on thyroid cancer surgery. Read more.