Assessment of Thyroid Function among the individuals of tea garden community of Assam: A Hospital based Study.

Background: Thyroid disorder has been a very common problem all over the world. Thyroid problem in ?-thalassemia major patients are well documented. Aim of the work: The aim of this study was to find out the status of thyroid profile among the tea garden community of Assam and the effect of hemoglobinopathy and ?-thalassemia over it. Materials and methods: A total 265 patients belonging to the tea garden community were recruited for the study. Laboratory investigations were done for thyroid function, hemoglobin typing and complete blood count. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS 21.0 and Pearson correlation and regression analysis were applied. Results: A total 36 patients were detected with thyroid dysfunction. Among these, 34 have hypothyroidism (12.8%) and 2 have hyperthyroidism (0.8%). Hemoglobinopathies and ?-thalassemia were detected in 181 (68.3%) of the patients. About 88% of the studied population was anemic. Female individuals were found to be more anemic than males. The study showed that there were positive correlation between Hb and TSH level (r = 0.18, P = 0.003), TSH and T4 level (r = 0.240, P<0.0001), TSH and T3 level (r = 0.383, P<0.0001). The age of the patients were correlated negatively with the T3 (r = -0.147, P = 0.017) and TSH (r = -0.157, P = 0.012) levels. Gender had a significant effect on the levels of TSH (P = 0.01) and T4 (P = 0.01). Conclusions: The present study was able to show the status of the thyroid profile among the tea garden community of Assam.