Freqüência de hipotireoidismo em pacientes com distúrbio bipolar tratados com carbonato de lítio

Abstract

Lithium is a mood stabilizer used to treat patients with bipolar mood disorder. The influence of lithium in the hypothalamus–pituitary–thyroid (HPT) axis can bring serious consequences to the users of this drug because one of its collateral effects is the inhibition of thyroid function with prevalence of symptomatic hypothyroidism and subclinical hypothyroidism in patients. Sixty-two notes of adult patients that consulted in the Ambulatory of Bipolar Disorders at University Hospital of Santa Maria were reviewed between January 1973 and July 2003 in order to verify the prevalence of hypothyroidism in patients with bipolar disorder treated with lithium. The sample had 23 men and 31 women. Eight patients were excluded because of the lack of data or because they have presented another type of diagnostic. We observed that the prevalence to develop hypothyroidism in patients using lithium was bigger in women (41,9%) than in men (21,7%). Therefore women were more susceptible to develop hypothyroidism than men. Thyroid hormones determination before and during lithium treatment is really important to the control of complications caused by thyroid hormones alterations.