The frequency of thyroid function disorders in chronic hepatitis patients taking interferon treatment

Introduction and AimIn this study; we aimed to search thyroid function disorders because of interferon -alpha treatment, used on patients with chronic hepatitis B and chronic hepatitis C, retrospectively.Material and Methods80 patients with chronic hepatitis B and 40 patients with chronic hepatitis C participated in this study. Patients with chronic hepatitis B had used IFN-? + lamivudine or adefovir dipivoxil and patients with chronic hepatitis C had used IFN-? + ribavirin treatment. All patients have normal thyroid function tests before this study. fT3, fT4 and TSH values of patients checked at the beginning, 3th month, 6th month and 12th month.FindingsWe found that gender is not significant for thyroid disfunction development in both hepatitis B and C group. But in both groups, most of the patients who developed thyroid disfunction were female. We found that thyroid disfunction developed in younger patients with hepatitis B. We found that all kind of thyroid function disorders are developed in patients taking IFN-?. It is found that thyroid function disorders develop more often in patients with chronic hepatitis C rather than patients with chronic hepatitis B.ConclusionWe must always keep in mind that thyroid function disorders may occur in patients taking IFN-? treatment. Female gender, chronic hepatitis C and positive anti-thyroid autoantibodies are the most important risk factors for thyroid disfunction. We advise that TSH and anti-thyroid autoantibodies of all patient should be checked before IFN-? treatment and fT3, fT4, TSH, anti-thyroid autoantibodies should be checked periodically every three months and more often in high risk group during treatment (if necessary also after treatment ).Key wordsChronic hepatitis B, Chronic hepatitis C, Interferon ?alpha, Thyroid function disorders