Abstract

Background- The physiological association between kidney and thyroid gland functions is well known from many years. Previous studies had reported that chronic kidney disease is associated with different thyroid gland dysfunctions including; low T3 syndrome, low T4 syndrome, Subclinical hypothyroidism. With the inconclusive background the present study was conducted with following objectives. Objectives- To assess the thyroid function tests of CKD cases and compare them with controls and evaluate the correlation between thyroid profile parameters with kidney function tests in CKD patients. Methods- This is a cross-sectional study performed on total 254 subjects, out of which 154 were CKD patients and 100 were sex and age matched controls. CKD cases were further divided into 3 sub-groups depending on their GFR values. Results- Out of 154 CKD cases 58(39%) were euthyroids .47(30%) CKD patients were found to have low T3 syndrome while 37(24%) patients were reported with low T4 syndrome. Subclinical hypothyroidism was observed in 11(7%) CKD cases. The frequency of these dysfunctions was observed to increase with deteriorating Glomerular Filtration Rate. Overt hypothyroidism and hyper thyroidism was not observed in this study. In this study we found a positive, linear and statistically significant correlation with total T3 and T4 level. However the GFR values in CKD showed a negative, linear but in-significant correlation with TSH level. Conclusions-The data obtained from this study revealed that there is relationship between kidney and thyroid gland function tests. The most common changes in CKD related to the thyroid gland are of low T3, T4 levels followed by subclinical hypothyroidism. Thus early evaluation of CKD patients for thyroid dysfunction followed by replacement therapy will help in improving clinical outcomes in CKD patients.

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