Liver Dysfunction in Hypothyroid Non-Pregnant Women

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the effects of under secretion of thyroid hormones and its  relation  with  liver markers i.e. alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST) in non-pregnant women.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was  conducted  in  Khyber  Teaching  Hospital  Peshawar  from  March 2014 to March 2015. The study was performed on 150 non-pregnant women in the age group of 18-70, attending the  outpatients  departments  of  Khyber  Teaching  Hospital  for  thyroid  screening.  The exclusion criteria were pregnancy, hypertension, renal impairment and known history of liver ab- normalities. Thyroid and liver function tests were performed for all the patients and control using standard kits and procedure. Normal subjects in the  same  age  group  were  selected  randomly  from  the  local population of Peshawar city and were used as control (N) for the study. Competitive ELISA tech-   nique was used for the analysis of T3 and T4 on Dia 710 microplate reader, while sandwich ELISA was used for TSH analysis. Quantitative tests for both ALT and AST were performed according to the international federation of clinical chemist (IFCC) protocols on Erbamannhein chemistry auto-analyser (Germany) using standard Erba kits.

Results:  ALT  and  AST  level  was  found  to  be  lower  in  the  patient  groups  [Overtly  hypothyroid (Oh): 24.35 ± 1.11 IU/L, sub-clinically hypothyroid (Sh): 16.85 ± 0.55 IU/L] than the control group (N: 29.69 ±3.28 IU/L). A significant positive correlation was observed between AST and TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone) in the control group (N) (p=0.002) and negative correlation in overtly hypothyroid (Oh) and sub-clinically hypothyroid (Sh) groups, respectively. No other significant correlation was  observed  be- tween ALT, TSH, T3 (triiodothyronine) and T4 (thyroxine) in any other groups.

Conclusion: Both liver enzymes (ALT and AST) were found to be lower in the patients groups (Oh and Sh) as compared to control group (N).