ESPE Abstracts

Background: Congenital hypothyroidism (CHT) is one of the most common congenital endocrine disorders. The study will determine the incidence of CHT and describe demographic characteristics and developmental outcomes in children attending Gertrude’s children’s hospital, Nairobi Kenya over 5-year, period.

Objective: To determine the incidence of congenital hypothyroidism, developmental outcome, and demographic characteristics in Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital, Nairobi Kenya.

Methods: Retrospective descriptive survey analyzed thyroid function test results from May 2015 to May 2020. Data is stratified based on age; medical charts of patients who meet the inclusion criteria with respect to age i.e.,3 days of life up to 2 years were accessed using the hospital’s unique identifying number (UHID) of the patients. To compare the study groups in terms of quantitative and qualitative variables, the t-test and Chi-square test were used respectively, using the SPSS25. P-value<0.05 was considered as significant.

Results: Of 1426 children included in study 90 had abnormal TSH out of which 70 have transient TSH elevation with normal thyroxine while 20 were identified with CHT (incidence of 14 per 1000 children). The female-to-male ratio was 1.5:1. The incidence of abnormal TSH across the different age groups was 2.4%, 7.2%, and 10.5% for ages 0-29 days, 1-11 months, and 1-2 years respectively. There was a significant association between the age group and abnormal test results (P=0.0002).

Conclusion: The incidence of congenital hypothyroidism in children attending Gertrude’s children hospital over the 5-year study period, is 20/1426(1.4%; 95%CI: 0.9%-2.1%). All cases were Primary CHT. Of which 12(60%) had poor developmental outcomes.