THYROID DYSFUNCTION IN ABNORMAL UTERINE BLEEDING

BACKGROUND Abnormal Uterine Bleeding (AUB) refers to bleeding that is excessive or occurs outside of normal cyclic menstruation. AUB is described by a variety of terms and may be caused by a number of genital and non-genital tract conditions, systemic disorders and medications. Thyroid dysfunction is marked by large number of menstrual aberrations. This study is aimed at detecting thyroid dysfunction in patients with provisional diagnosis of AUB and refers positive cases to physician for further evaluation. METHODS 50 cases of clinically diagnosed AUB were taken from Gynaecology OPD and inpatients of Yenepoya Medical College, Mangalore. All patients from 20 to 50 age groups presenting as menorrhagia, metrorrhagia, polymenorrhagia were tested for their thyroid function by T-3, T-4, TSH estimations in their serum. Patients who had clinical signs and symptoms of thyroid disease were on hormonal treatment, IUCD users or had bleeding disorders were excluded from the study. RESULTS 20% of patients who were studied had thyroid dysfunction, of which 16% of patients had hypothyroidism and only 4% of patients had hyperthyroidism. The commonest bleeding abnormalities in subclinical hypothyroid patients were polymenorrhagia and menorrhagia. CONCLUSIONS Hypothyroid cases together were the commonest thyroid dysfunction and menorrhagia was their commonest menstrual abnormality. So this study concludes that biochemical evaluation of thyroid functioning should be made mandatory in all provisionally diagnosed cases of AUB to detect thyroid dysfunction.