Context: Over the years lower TSH cutoffs have been adopted in some screening programs for congenital hypothyroidism (CH) worldwide. This has resulted in a progressive increase in detecting additional mild forms of the disease, essentially with normally located and shaped thyroid. However, the question of whether such additional mild CH cases can benefit from detection by newborn screening and early thyroid hormone treatment is still open.
Objective: The aim of this study was to estimate the frequency of cases with mild increase of TSH at screening in the Italian population of babies with permanent CH and to characterize these babies in terms of diagnosis classification and neonatal features.
Methods: Data recorded in the Italian National Registry of infants with CH were analyzed.
Results: Between 2000 and 2006, 17 of the 25 Italian screening centers adopted a TSH cutoff at screening of <15.0 μU/mL. It was found that 21.6% of babies with permanent CH had TSH at screening of 15.0 μU/mL or less, whereas this percentage was 54% in infants with transient hypothyroidism. Among the babies with permanent CH and mild increase of TSH at screening (≤15 μU/mL), 19.6% had thyroid dysgenesis with serum TSH levels at confirmation of the diagnosis ranging from 9.9 to 708 μU/mL. These babies would have been missed at screening if the cutoff had been higher.
Conclusions: Lowering TSH cutoff in our country has enabled us to detect additional cases of permanent CH, a number of which had defects of thyroid development and severe hypothyroidism at confirmation of the diagnosis.