Jamshid Farahati, Rainer Görges, Elana Gilman, James Nagarajah, Zohre Mousavi, Rema Markous, Kevan Farahati and Rasoul S Zakavi
Background: To evaluate the predictive factors of goitre prevalence in females.
Methods: In a questionnaire-based survey, data from 370 female employees aged between from 4 institutions in western part of Germany was collected between April 2001 and April 2002 and the association between parity and simple goitre was examined with respect to age, daily use of iodized salt, contraceptives, the history of goitre in the first degree relatives and smoking. Ultrasound of the neck was performed in all cases to determine the thyroid volume. Logistic regression analyses were performed to adjust for age, iodine status, parity, contraceptives, familial history of goitre and smoking.
Results: The overall prevalence of goitre was (80/370) 21.6%. Median thyroid volume Goitre was present in 44 out of 140 parous (31.4%) vs. 34/220 (15.5%) in nulliparous (odds ratio: 2.5; p<0.001). Indeed, the linear regression shows a positive association of the thyroid volume with increasing age (p=0.023), the number of cigarettes in a week (p=0.001) and its negative association with duration of contraceptive intake (p=0.005), no association with iodine intake or parity could be detected. However, the logistic regression analysis revealed significant association only between goitre prevalence and parity (p=0.004), and lack of daily iodized salt intake (p=0.01), whereas, age (p=0.18), contraceptive (p=0.82), the familial history of goitre (p=0.33) and smoking (p=0.09) did not affect the goitre prevalence.
Conclusions: Parity and iodine status are predictive factors of goitre prevalence in females.
