This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on Web of Science (4)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

A Reassessment

Robert H. Caplan, MD; Gary Wickus, PhD

JAMA. 1979;242(4):352-353.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

MANY physicians believe that goiter frequently develops during normal pregnancy.^1,2 In the course of gestation, increased urinary losses of iodide diminish the concentration of plasma inorganic iodide (PII) and produce a relative iodide deficiency.³ Increased thyroidal clearance of iodide, frequently associated with thyroid gland enlargement, maintains normal absolute iodide uptake and thyroid hormone synthesis.³

Dietary iodide deficiency may be another goitrogenic stimulus since goiters associated with pregnancy are more common in areas of reduced iodide intake.⁴ Because dietary iodide intake has substantially increased in our geographic area,⁵ we undertook the present study to reassess the prevalence of goiter and to determine the current concentration of PII during pregnancy.

Subjects and Methods

One of us (R.H.C.) examined 125 women within 24 hours of delivery. A brief history was taken and the size of the thyroid gland estimated by palpation. We consider a normal thyroid gland to . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Departments of Internal Medicine and Clinical Laboratories, Gundersen Clinic, Ltd; and the La Crosse Lutheran Hospital, La Crosse, Wis.

Footnotes
Reprint requests to 1836 South Ave, La Crosse, WI 54601 (Dr Caplan).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?